can  perform  f 


.rent,  the  teacher  and  the 


child,  this  important  office.  Yet  while  for  adults, 
who,  knowing  most,  need  them  least,  there  is 
an  endless  variety  of  newspapers— weekly  and 
monthly  newspapers  devoted  to  all  the  trades, 
arts,  businesses  and  professions,  and  daily  news- 
papers devoted  to  everything  else;  and,  for  young 
people,  periodicals  without  number  which  tell 
of  the  things  which  did  not  happen— usually, 
indeed,  of  things  that  never  could— they  can 
nowhere  in  this  wilderness  of  print  find— a news- 
paper; an  answer  to  the  inquiry  which  the 
healthy  mind  follows  from  infancy  to  old  age: 
“ What  is  my  world  made  of  and  how  does  it 
work;  what  are  the  other  people  doing  and  how 
do  they  do  it?”  Francis  B.  Atkinson. 

Chicago , Sept.  24, 1900. 

KW 

FIRST  ARTICLE 

THE  USEFULNESS  OF  WATER  IN  LEARNING  TO 

swin 

To  the  inquiry,  “Just  how  is  an  account  of 
current  events  to  be  used  in  school  work?”  the 
answer  is, 

“Get. rid  of  the  e just  how’  idea  and  the  whole 
thing  is  done.” 

The  only  difficulties  will  be  those  which  you 
may  put  in  the  way.  If  you  want  life  in  your 
school  open  the  door  and  let  it  come  in — in  other 
words  don’t  shut  it  out. 

Nature  as  a Model  in  Nature  Work 

The  boy,  (for  convenience  sake  I will  use  the 
word  throughout  to  include  both  sexes)  in  com- 
mon with  all  animal  creation,  is  attached  to  life. 


3 


He  comes  to  school  with  his  mind  full  of  it.  Let 
it  stay.  The  great  difficulty  is  to  separate  him 
from  it— a difficulty  which  only  the  unfortunate 
ingenuity  of  man  has  ever  solved.  Having  learned 
how,  we  are  now  progressing  rapidly  by  forget-  f 
ting  as  fast  as  possible.  This  is  the  whole  differ- 
ence between  the  old  educational  method  and 
the  new.  We  used  to  draw  our  ideas  of  life,  like 
the  artists  who  made  the  rigid  and  impossible  ^ 
images  of  Egyptian  kings,  from  the  “ inner  con- 
sciousness” and  the  false  models  left  by  our 
predecessors;  now  we  draw  more  from  nature 
and  no  longer,  as  Ruskin  says,  “ blaspheme 
the  works  of  God  by  painting  the  living  grass 
brown  instead  of  green.” 

The  purpose  of  these  articles,  then,  expressed 
briefly,  is  to  demonstrate  that  they  ought  not  to 
have  been  written;  that  it  ought  not  to  have 
been  necessary  to  write  them. 

However  they  may  differ  in  other  points— 
educators  past  and  present  and  everywhere — 
man  in  the  education  of  his  children,  and  the 
animal  in  the  education  of  its  young— agree  that 
the  object  of  a school  is  to  prepare  its  scholars 
for  life. 

The  proposition,  therefore,  to  bring  school 
studies  and  current  life  into  touch  needs  the 
same  defense,  the  same  explanation  as  a sug- 
gestion to  introduce  horses  into  a riding  academy, 
or  to  turn  water  into  a swimming  school. 

How  the  Text  Book  Eclipses  the  Earth 

To  put  the  book  before  the  thing  which  the  4 
book  is  about;  to  walk  around  the  earth  and 
among  all  its  living  sights  and  peoples  and  in- 
dustries with  eyes  fixed  on  a Geography;  to 
4 


cipher  through  an  Arithmetic  unconscious  and 
ignorant  of  all  the  world’s  thoughts  and  activi- 
ties in  which  figures  are  playing  theii  busy  and 
essential  parts— fast  flying  shuttles  weaving  the 
warp  of  industry,  knitting  the  fabrics  of  trade; 
to  commit  to  memory  the  number  of  bones  in  the 
Physiology,  to  recite  and  listen  to  recitations  on 
the  structure  of  the  human  ear  with  ears  in- 
sensible to  the  voices  of  living  men;  to  painfully 
drag  out  Compositions  on  assigned  topics,  while 
in  the  world  outside  people  are  speaking  and 
writing  from  an  impelling  interest  in  the  things 
they  see  and  know— is  to  put  the  cart  before  the 
horse— or  rather  is  trying  to  get  somewhere  in  a 
cart  without  a horse. 

The  best  thing  Nature  ever  did  for  the  fish 
was  to  make  him  take  to  water.  The  best  thing 
she  ever  did  for  her  boy  was  to  make  him  seek  out- 
of-door  information.  A boy’s  interest  in  life  is 
his  motive  power.  He  needs  it  in  his  business 
of  being  taught  and  you  need  it  in  your  business 
of  teaching  him.  Hitch  it  on  to  his  school  lessons 
and  he  will  take  them  away  with  him  in  the 
afternoon  and  bring  them  back  the  next  morn- 
ing; otherwise,  when  he  comes  into  the  school 
room  door  he  will  leave  his  interest  in  life  on 
the  outside;  when  he  goes  out  of  the  school 
room  door  he  will  leave  his  lessons  on  the  inside. 
Unrestrained  he  goes  back  to  Mother  Earth  for 
such  instruction  as,  with  or  without  your  guid- 
ance, she  alone  can  give  him. 

This  is  the  law  of  gravitation  as  applied  to 
education.  Here,  again,  replying  to  the  ques- 
tion, “How  shall  we  do  it?  How  shall  we  con- 
nect the  boy  with  life?”  the  answer  is:  “If  he 
is  not  connected  with  life  you  must  be  holding 
him  away.  Let  go,  that’s  all.” 

5 


The  Small  Boy’s  Hodel  of  His  Larger  World 

Before  he  started  to  school  he  had  begun  learn- 
ing everything  you  may  be  trying  to  teach  him. 
He  learned  where  the  different  industries  in 
the  town  are  located,  and  as  much  as  his  five 
senses  could  tell  as  to  how  they  are  carried  on— 
that  was  Geography  and  probably  Physics  and 
perhaps  Arithmetic;  he  knew  where  grew  ti  e 
things  he  wanted  to  eat  and  the  “pizen  ” things 
that  he  musn’t  eat— that  was  Geography  again 
and  Botany;  he  knew  the  habits  and  habita- 
tions of  the  animals  he  wanted  to  catch  and  of 
the  animals  (real  or  imaginary)  that  he  didn’t 
want  to  catch  him— that  was  still  Geography, 
and,  in  addition,  Nature  Study;  he  wanted  to 
know  why  the  sun  rose  in  the  East  and  set  in 
the  West,  and  what  it  and  the  earth  and  the 
moon  and  the  stars  were  made  of— that  was 
Geography  and  Astronomy  and  Geology;  he  was 
deeply  interested  in  his  sore  toe  and  in  other 
boys’  sore  toes  and  in  all  his  and  their  breaks 
and  bruises,  in  the  ailments  of  his  animal  pets 
and  the  methods  of  curing  them— that  was 
Physiology;  he  assiduously  won  all  he  could  of 
marbles  and  eagerly  counted  and  recounted  all 
he  won,  and  told  how  and  where  he  won  them — 
that  was  still  Geography,  plus  Arithmetic,  plus 
Language,  plus  the  combination  of  faculties  and 
skill  which  we  call  “Business.” 

And  so  through  the  list.  You  find  him  active 
and  busy— the  very  embodiment  of  busy-ness— 
in  the  little  world  in  which  he  is  living — a com- 
plete counterpart  and  prophecy  of  the  larger 
world  in  which  he  is  to  live. 

The  Twin  Sciences  of  Geography  and  Newsography 

Now,  your  pleasing  occupation  is  to  introduce 

- 6 


him  to  this  larger  world.  You  are  to  toe  his 
guide  and  the  text  books  are  the  guide  booKs— 
the  most  comprehensive  of  which  is  the  one  we 
call  Geography.  In  fact  Geography,  as  Nature 
teaches  it,  is  the  whole  thing — it  is  the  world 
and  all  that  is  and  takes  place  thereon,  and  all 
that  we  may  know  or  learn  of  its  brother  worlds 
in  the  skies  that  bend  above  it.  As  Professor 
Dewey  has  so  happily  expressed  it,  it  is  “the  unity 
of  all  the  sciences/’ 

Emerson  somewhere  points  out  that  the  saying 
“All  roads  lead  to  Rome”  does  not  tell  the 
greatest  truth  with  regard  to  this  historic  facto 
These  roads  were  built  not  from  the  rest  of  the 
world  into  Rome,  as  the  phrase  “ lead  to  Rome” 
implies,  but  were  built  out  from  Rome  into  the 
world,  thus  giving  the  Roman  quick  and  easy 
access  into  all  the  provinces  of  his  Empire.  So 
in  education  Geography  can  be  made  and  is 
logically  the  central  science  from  which  to  lead 
into  all  the  others;  the  background  of  The  Pres- 
ent, from  which,  from  day  to  day  to  move  out 
into  those  various  provinces  of  human  knowl- 
edge, represented  by  the  text  books,  which  the 
world’s  experience  and  the  world’s  teachers 
have  agreed  upon  as  best  for  the  discipline,  de- 
velopment and  information  of  the  student. 

As  the  first  practical  step  in  the  carrying  out 
of  this  idea,  draw,  or  better  still,  have  the  pupils 
draw  on  the  blackboard  a map  of  the  world  on 
Mercator’s  projection  so  as  to  bring  the  whole 
stretch  of  it,  the  whole  background  of  life,  into 
view  at  one  time. 

Around  the  World  in  Thirty  Minutes 

Indicate  on  this  map  by  figures  the  location  of 
notable  events;  here  a great  sea  coast  city  is 
7 


threatened  by  the  spread  of  a rebellious  uprising; 
there  a new  seaport  has  just  been  opened  to  the 
fleets  of  commerce;  here  the  construction  of  a 
new  type  of  vessel  has  enabled  grain  to  be  -k, 
shipped  by  water  direct  from  ports  on  the  Great 
Lakes  to  Liverpool;  away  off  to  the  northeast 
there  another  expedition  is  starting  for  the  North 
Pole;  down  here  in  Asia  Minor  the  Sultan  is  { 
preparing  to  build  a railroad  from  Damascus  to 
Mecca  and  the  tumult  of  shouting  trainmen  and 
the  shriek  of  escaping  steam  will  echo  in  the 
City  of  the  Prophet  and  along  the  crooked  thor- 
oughfare which  St.  Paul  refers  to  “ as  the  street 
which  is  called  Straight;”  intrenched  among 
the  rocks  and  mountains  which  those  little  fan- 
like lines  represent  are  the  Boers  and  yonder 
are  the  British,  and  the  valley  echoes  the  robust 
debate  of  their  artillery;  to  that  region  the  mon- 
soon usually  brings  rain  and  because  it  failed 
this  year  millions  of  people  are  starving  and 
yonder  in  the  land  of  Egypt  the  waters  in  the 
Nile  are  low;  in  the  South  too  much  rain  has 
hurt  the  cotton  crop  while  up  yonder  in  the 
Northwest  the  wheat  fields  are  suffering  for  lack 
of  it;  on  the  ocean,  storms  are  unusually  frequent 
and  severe,  and  marine  insurance  rates  have  been 
advanced,  because  there  are  spots  on  the  sun 
this  year;  the  war  over  in  China  has  in- 
creased the  price  of  sulphur  there  in  Sicily  be- 
cause so  many  of  the  Italian  vessels  which  carry 
it  to  the  market  are  off  to  China  in  the  service 
of  the  King. 

At  the  bottom  of  the  blackboard  have  figures 
corresponding  to  those  on  the  map  and  brief 
statements  of  the  facts  to  which  the  figures 
relate.  v 


8 


In  the  Geography  class  proper  the  map  will 
impress  itself  on  the  minds  of  the  pupils  because 
it  is  the  scene  of  interesting  events.  There  is, 
~ moreover,  an  immense  stimulus  to  the  child  in 
the  fact  that,  if  his  desire  to  know  of  the  present 
world  and  its  work  is  gratified,  he  is  studying 
the  things  in  which  his  father  and  mother  are 
] interested.  This  is  the  kind  of  Geography  he 
hears  talked  about  at  home. 

Its  benefit  may  still  further  be  increased,  the 
pupil  given  an  active  part  in  the  work  and  his 
memory  tested  by  erasing  the  explanations  un- 
der the  map  and  letting  him  write  them  out ; 
then  erasing  the  figures  and  letting  him  relocate 
the  scenes  of  events  on  the  map. 

A Sure  Test  of  Knowledge  Values 

Current  events,  moreover,  perform  an  import- 
ant function  in  determining  what  part  of  geo- 
graphical knowledge  is  of  most  value.  Parts  of 
the  earth  in  which  nothing  ever  happens,  from 
which  nobody  ever  comes  and  to  which  nobody 
ever  goes,  do  not,  obviously,  amount  to  much 
and  knowledge  with  regard  to  them  is  of  little 
value. 

THT 

SECOND  ARTICLE 

THE  FIRM  OF  “WORLD,  WEATHER  & CO.”  AND 
THE  NATURE  OF  THEIR  BUSINESS 

The  value  of  Life  Study  in  the  school  is: 

1.  To  show  the  relation  of  school  studies  to 
the  facts  of  life. 

2.  To  show  the  relations  of  these  facts  to  one 
another. 

Both  these  important  results,  are  obviously 

9 


achieved  by  the  method  under  consideration. 

Get  in  view  and  keep  in  view  the  fundamental 
truth,  the  truth  which  is  the  basis  of  the  modern 
educational  system— the  modern  educational 
revolution— that  the  school  was  made  for  man 
and  not  man  for  the  school,  Things  will  not 
happen  in  Portuguese  East  Africa,  for  example, 
because  in  the  Geography  lessons  of  that  week 
the  pupils  are  expected  to  commit  to  memory  the  t 
names  and  numbers  of  its  sub-divisions.  But 
when  they  read  how  a cargo  of  American  flour 
is  seized  by  a British  ship  in  Delogoa  Bay  you 
may  in  your  Geography  class  teach  eager  listen- 
ers all  you  like  about  Portuguese  East  Africa 
and  its  provinces  and  follow  that  ship  in  its 
voyage  across  half  the  world  with  its  cargo  of 
flour  and  Geography,  showing  them  such  of  the 
scenes  and  peoples  and  industries,  as  you  choose 
on  the  way. 

You  have  taught  them  that  the  world  is  round 
and  that,  starting  from  any  one  point  and  going 
straight  ahead,  you  may  go  all  around  it.  Do 
it.  Make  such  journeys  in  your  classes,  always 
starting  from  some  point  where  something  has 
happened  which  will  enlist  the  pupil’s  interest. 
Then  you  have  got  him  aboard;  you  can  carry 
him  where  you  like.  What  the  greatest  of  ora- 
tors defined  as  the  secret  of  oratory— of  convic- 
tion, of  pursuasion,  of  making  other  people  see 
things  as  you  see  them— is  action,  action,  action. 

If  you  want  to  give  somebody  else  a piece  of 
your  mind  you  must  attach  it  to  something 
that  is  moving.  The  boy  will  tell  you  that  you  /> 
can’t  fly  kites  when  there  is  no  wind  blowing. 

The  Black  Line  and  the  River 

A boy  finds  real  Geography  much  more  inter- 


esting  than  mere  book  Geography  and  in  pro- 
portion as  teachers  associate  the  map  with  the 
events  which  the  map  illustrates  the  study  is 
made  attractive  and  practical.  In  the  book, 
states  are  bounded  by  other  states  ; in  life  they 
are  bounded  by  men  and  these  men  are  doing 
things.  A teacher  in  the  schools  at  Rock  Island, 
Illinois,  said  they  had  many  pupils  every  year 
' who  hadn’t  any  idea,  until  they  were  told,  that 
the  black  line  on  the  map  representing  the  Mis- 
sissippi River  had  any  connection  with  the 
stream  of  water  that  flows  by  the  town.  Illus- 
trating the  same  fact  from  current  history,  the 
fact  the  marks  on  the  map  stand  for  real  things, 
it  will  be  noted  that  many  men  lost  their  lives 
and  several  generals  their  reputations  because 
there  were  some  kopjes  in  Africa  that  they 
didn’t  have  on  their  maps;  on  the  coast  of  one 
of  the  Philippine  Islands  a ship  went  down  be- 
cause there  was  a sunken  reef  there  which  the 
chart-makers  had  not  recorded— all  due  to  the 
absence  of  some  black  marks  on  white  paper 
from  the  place  where  they  ought  to  have  been. 

“ Geography,”  said  Von  Moltke,  “is  half  the 
art  of  war.”  So  is  it,  taught  as  here  indicated, 
half  the  art  of  life  and  education.  The  map 
should  be  before  every  class  just  as  the  general 
carries  with  him  and  constantly  refers  to  his 
plans  of  campaign.  Scratch  the  surface  of 
Geography  and  you  have  Geology;  tell  where, 
as  at  Niagara,  turbines  have  been  set  under  one 
of  its  waterfalls  and  you  have  Hydraulics;  of 
f how  the  power  generated  here  is  transmitted  to 
Buffalo  and  you  have  Electricity;  talk  of  the 
plant  life  on  its  surface  and  you  have  Botany; 
of  its  animal  life  and  you  have  Biology;  of  the 
11 


scene  of  a memorable  political  gathering  past  or 
present  and  you  have  History  and  Civil  Govern- 
ment; show  where  the  mines  of  South  Africa  are 
located  and  how  the  gold  is  extracted  and  you 
have  Mechanics  and  Chemistry;  point  out  where 
Wellman,  the  explorer,  fell  into  the  ice  crevasse 
and  broke  his  leg,  and  where  and  how  it  was 
broken  and  you  have  a more  impressive  lesson  ^ 
in  Physiology  and  Anatomy  than  could  be  sup- 
plied by  the  most  perfect  manikin. 

The  Modern  Method  in  Geography  Teaching 

To  show  how  thoroughly  this  whole  idea  is  in 
keeping  with  modern  educational  practice  and 
yet  how  important  an  advance  it  marks  on  any- 
thing that  has  been  done  or  can  be  done  in  cor- 
relation and  vitalization  through  the  text  book 
alone,  let  me  cite  a few  examples  of  supple- 
mental work  from  one  of  the  latest  and  best 
Geographies. 

This  Geography,  in  its  preface,  points  out  the 
fact  that  “Geography  for  schools  should  be  a 
practical  study  of  man’s  physical  surroundings 
in  their  relation  to  him.”  Accordingly  we  do 
not  find  the  fact  that  the  earth  is  round  put  be- 
fore the  beginner  in  Geography  as  a subject  of 
the  first  interest  or  importance  to  him.  Alex- 
ander won  all  his  battles,  Demosthenes  delivered 
all  his  orations,  Achilles  fought  and  Homer 
sang  of  him,  on  an  earth  which  all  supposed  to 
be  flat;  obviously  then  a knowledge  that  the 
earth  is  round  is  not  an  absolute  essential  to 
high  intellectual  achievement.  So  the  child,  « 
following  lines  of  information  which  he  can 
more  readily  utilize  and  therefore  understand, 
discovers  for  himself  that  the  earth  is  round, 
somewhat  as  the  race  discovered  it,  by  circum-  ^ 


12 


navigating  it  in  his  studies.  The  explanation 
does  not  precede  the  fact;  facts  are  first  pre- 
sented, which  arouse  a desire  for  the  expiana- 
4 tion,  the  explanation  which  only  the  real  shape 
of  the  world  can  give. 

Yet  this  text  book  in  its  supplemental  work 
and  its  correlations  stops,  as  all  text  books  must, 
^ just  short  of  coming  in  contact  with  things 
* which  continue  to  happen  after  it  has  gone  to 
press.  In  other  words,  it  makes  overtures  to- 
ward life  and  goes  as  far  as  it  can  toward  form- 
ing an  alliance,  but  it  can  go  no  farther.  A life- 
book  must  come  forward  and  meet  it  half  way. 
For  example,  it  calls  attention  to  the  fact  that 
when  the  moon  passes  between  the  sun  and  the 
earth  the  earth’s  shadow  on  the  moon  is  round, 
but  it  is  unconscious  of  the  more  impressive 
lesson,  which  the  world  has  recently  been  study- 
ing through  smoked  glass,  that  the  moon  did 
pass  between  the  sun  and  the  earth  and  cast  a 
round  shadow  on  the  sun.  It  points  out  that 
people  have  traveled  in  one  general  direction 
entirely  around  the  earth  to  the  place  from 
which  they  started,  but  it  does  not  know  that 
Mr.  Cobbold,  the  English  traveller,  has  just  re- 
turned from  a trip  around  the  world  during 
which  he  passed  through  the  hitherto  unpene- 
trated mysteries  of  the  land  of  the  Grand  Llama 
and  saw  and  did  many  other  wonderful  things 
which  make  Geography  as  interesting  as  the 
most  thrilling  book  of  imaginary  adventures, 
f The  Proper  Method  of  Correlation 

In  its  work  of  correlating  Geography  with 
Literature,  it  suggest  that  the  teacher  have  the 
pupils  read  Jean  Ingelow’s  “ High  Tide  on  the 
Coast  of  Lincolnshire;”  but  it  does  not  know  of 
13 


the  recent  great  storm  in  England  which  swept 
away  the  church  in  St.  Bottolph’s  Town  to- 
gether with  its  bell  which  played  “The  Brides  of 
Enderby”  as  a storm  signal  to  fishermen.  The  ^ 
teacher  is  told  to  procure  a series  of  daily 
weather  maps  from  the  Weather  Bureau  and 
follow  the  course  of  a storm,  explaining  its  his- 
tory. This  was  months  before  the  greatest  ^ 
hurricane  in  history  swept  away  Galveston,  in 
the  account  of  which  the  teacher  finds  these 
daily  weather  maps  already  procured  for  him 
from  the  Weather  Bureau,  the  course  of  the 
storm  marked  out  for  him  and  its  origin  and  his- 
tory explained. 

“Find  in  a History,”  again  says  this  Geogra- 
phy, “a  map  showing  the  growth  of  the  United 
States  in  territory  and  put  a copy  on  the  board 
in  colored  crayons.”  We  know,  what  the  author 
of  this  Geography  at  the  time  he  wrote  could 
not  know,  that  the  subject  of  territorial  ex- 
pansion of  the  United  States  is  a burning  ques- 
tion, and  that  the  school  may  now  have  a map, 
colored  not  only  with  crayons,  but  with  the 
words  of  oratory  and  campaign  transparencies. 

In  further  correlation  with  the  study  of  His- 
tory, the  pupils  are  told  to  find  the  names  of  the 
present  president  and  his  cabinet.  Just  now  a 
president  and  his  cabinet  are  in  process  of  being 
chosen  and  the  names  of  all  of  them  and  much 
more  valuable  and  related  information  the  boy 
would  absorb  unconsciously  through  the  pores 
of  his  skin  if  you  would  let  him  take  his  text, 
books  and  with  him  join  the  great,  interesting, 
educative  procession  of  events. 

Real  Weather  and  Real  Men  in  Meteorology  Lessons 

In  this  Geography  is  taught  the  elements  ofi 
14 


Meteorology.  Meteorology,  whether  taught  in 
its  elementary  form  in  connection  with  Geogra- 
phy, or  in  more  advanced  form  as  a separate 
study,  is  a dry,  and  to  a great  extent,  meaning- 
less diagram  of  twisted  lines  and  crooked  ar- 
rows; or  it  is  a fascinating  picture  of  the  world 
and  human  affairs  as  affected  from  day  to  day 
by  the  winds  and  all  the  multiplied  and  com- 
plex changes  which  these  winds  bring  with 
them— a living  fact,  a living  force,  so  powerful 
that  it  has  shaped  and  continues  still  to  shape 
all  of  man’s  works— in  his  industries,  in  his  ar- 
chitecture, in  his  paintings,  in  his  literature. 

Showing  Weather  at  Its  Work 

In  one  of  the  latest  works  on  Meteorology  con- 
siderable attention  is  given  to  the  climate  of  the 
Yang  Tse  Kiang  Valley,  to  that  of  South  Africa, 
and  to  the  climate  at  the  North  Pole.  We  dll 
know  what  great  events  in  the  Boxer  uprising, 
in  the  Boer-British  War  and  in  the  achievement 
of  the  Duke  d’Abruzzi,  would  impress  this 
knowledge  upon  the  pupil’s  mind  and  show— 
what  the  book  does  not  even  hint  at— how  these 
climatic  conditions  affect  the  doings  of  men. 
There  is  in  Meteorology,  to  put  the  same  fact  in 
the  technical  language  of  educational  science, 
no  “correlation.”  Here  are  some  further  ex- 
amples from  “The  Life  Class,”  published  at  the 
time  when  the  events  referred  to  occurred,  of  the 
supplemental  information  which  the  school  study 
of  Meteorology  needs: 

How  does  the  amount  of  rain  which  fell  in  this  country 
during  June  compare  with  the  rains  in  June  in  previous 
years  ? 

What  effect  has  the  lack  of  rain  had  on  the  lake  levels 
and  on  lake  traffic  ? On  the  lumber  business  ? On  the  birds 
in  the  rice  and  cranberry  bogs  ? 

15 


Why  is  Cape  Hatteras  especially  dangerous  and  where 
do  the  storms  that  sweep  along  our  Eastern  coast  come 
from  ? 

Give  an  idea  of  the  business  life  of  the  farmer  and  par- 
ticularly what  happens  along  about  harvest  time. 

How  are  daily  weather  reports  to  be  furnished  to 
farmers  ? 

What  part  of  the  country  has  been  damaged  by  storms 
and  what  was  the  damage  ? 

What  is  the  difference  between  a cyclonic  wind  and  a 
tornado  ? 

What  damage  has  been  done  by  recent  bad  weather  in 
France  ? 

KW 

THIRD  ARTICLE 

PUTTING  LIFE  INTO  THE  ARITHMETIC  LESSON 

The  aim  of  the  old  education  seemed  to  be  to 
take  interesting  and  valuable  facts  and  make 
schoolroom  scarecrows  out  of  them  by  giving 
them  formidable  names.  Pike’s  Arithmetic  had 
300  rules,  and  called  a lot  of  innocent  and  useful 
arithmetical  truths  such  hard  names  as  “ Permu- 
tation,” “Progression,”  “Alligation,”  “Single 
Position”  and  “Double  Position.”  With  the 
awakening  of  the  educational  world  these  night- 
mares have  disappeared,  but  Prof.  John  Dewey, 
who  occupies  the  chair  of  the  Chicago  Uni- 
versity devoted  to  the  science  of  teaching,  having 
called  attention  to  the  fact  that  the  problems 
relating  to  compound  partnership  stayed  in  the 
Arithmetic  for  200  years  after  compound  partner- 
ship disappeared  from  business  life,  adds  : 

A great  deal  of  what  is  now  in  the  arithmetics  under  the 
he^d  of  percentage  is  of  the  same  nature.  Children  of 
twelve  and  thirteen  years  of  age  go  through  gain  and  loss 
calculations  and  various  forms  of  bank  discount  so  com- 
plicated that  the  bankers  long  ago  dispensed  with  them. 
When  it  is  pointed  out  that  business  is  not  done  this  way, 
16 


we  hear  of  ‘mental  discipline.’  The  child  should  study 
his  commercial  arithmetic  and  geography , not  as  isolated 
things,  but  in  their  reference  to  his  social  environment. 
The  youth  needs  to  become  acquainted  with  the  bank  as  a 
factor  in  modern  life,  with  what  it  does  and  how  it  does  it, 
and  ^en  arithmetical  processes  will  have  some  meaning. 

The  Donkey  and  the  Bull  Frog 

Many  parents  complain  that  heavy  books  are 
forced  on  immature  children,  and  one  of  them  in 
bitter  jest  recently  forwarded  to  the  Chicago 
school  board  the  following  problem  as  one  worthy 
of  a place  in  a text  book  to  which  he  objected  : 

If  16-47  of  a bull  frog  will  leap  45-67  of  an  inch  in  17-63  of 
a second,  what  part  of  an  inch  will  23-97  of  a bull  frog  leap 
in  567-817  of  a second  ? 

If  7-11  of  a yellow  donkey  will  wag  his  tail  at  a radius  of 
6.1943  of  an  inch,  what  proportion  of  an  inch  will  19.763  of  a 
black  donkey  wag  his  tail  ? 

This,  however,  must  have  been  a particularly 
objectionable  arithmetic,  as  we  find  in  the  best 
text  books  in  this  line  examples  taken  largely 
from  business  affairs  and  correlating  arithmetic 
with  geography,  astronomy,  mechanics,  bank- 
ing, insurance,  brokerage  and  so  on.  One  ex- 
ample deals  with  an  advance  in  the  price  of 
India  rubber,  another  with  the  measurement  of 
coal,  another  with  lace  making  in  France,  an- 
other with  the  diameter  of  Venus,  another  with 
the  trip  of  a vessel  from  Liverpool  to  Portland, 
another  with  the  determination  of  the  horse 
power  of  an  engine  and  the  circumference  of  a 
flywheel,  another  with  city  taxes,  and  so  on. 

When  you  thus  keep  your  arithmetical  rules 
in  contact  with  the  concrete  instead  of  the  ab- 
stract, you  have  gone  a long  way  in  the  right 
direction.  When  you  begin  to  deal  with  con- 
crete things  now  in  existence  by  bringing  your 
17 


arithmetic  in  touch  with  life,  or  bringing  life  up 
and  touching  your  arithmetic  lesson  with  it— 
you  have  arrived. 

It  is  safe  to  say  that  there  is  hardly  a bank 
president  in  Chicago  who  could  figure  out  for 
himself  as  quickly  as  some  of  your  brightest 
pupils  in  fractions  how  much  4 16-17  times 
8 42-97  is,  and  if  you  should  ask  Mr.  Armour, 
off-hand,  to  say  how  he  would  multiply  a num- 
ber by  333  1-3  by  the  method  of  aliquot  parts,  he 
would  probably  do  it  by  proxy  ; that  is  to  say, 
he  would  summon  one  of  the  young  men  whom 
he  employs  for  that  purpose;  or  if  you  should 
show  him  a long  column  of  figures  and  want  the 
result,  he  might  call  another  young  man,  who, 
in  turn,  would  probably  press  some  buttons  and 
let  his  adding  machine  do  the  rest. 

Something  that  Cuts  More  Figure  in  Business  than 
Figure=Skill 

Now  the  intention  here  is  not  to  minimize  the 
importance  of  skill  in  doing  quickly  sums  in 
fractions  or  addition,  but  to  point  out  the  folly 
and  inconsistency  of  insisting  upon  this  kind  of 
knowledge,  the  kind  of  skill  which  is  possessed 
by  young  men  who  get  only  moderate  wages,  and 
adding  machines  which  get  no  wages  at  all,  and 
omitting  entirely  instruction  in  the  larger  truths 
and  principles  of  commercial  life,  which  only 
regular  and  constant  contact  with  the  move- 
ments of  commercial  life  through  a properly 
edited  school  newspaper  can  supply.  The  young 
man  who  has  skill  as  a book  keeper  gets  an  op- 
portunity to  begin;  the  young  man  who  has 
this  plus  the  other  knowledge  referred  to  will 
get  an  opportunity  to  rise. 

Moreover,  so  far  as  the  mere  acquirement  of 
18 


skill  in  figures  goes,  the  chief  need  is  to  stimu- 
late the  interest  of  the  pupil  by  giving  him 
things  from  current  life  to  “ mix  in  ” with  the 
examples  in  his  arithmetic.  In  connection  with 
the  presidential  campaign,  for  instance,  people 
* speak  of  the  number  of  votes  cast  for  president 
in  the  last  campaign  and  estimate  the  number 
that  will  be  cast  this  year.  The  bankers  are 
talking  about  England’s  issue  of  bonds  to  cover 
'the  expenses  of  the  war  in  South  Africa.  “ For 
how  much  money  has  England  issued  bonds? 
How  much  does  one  of  these  $1,000  English 
bonds  sell  for  and  what  rate  of  interest  does 
this  represent?”  is  one  of  the  questions  in  “The 
Life  Class.”  All  such  subjects  are  starting 
points  from  which  you  may  lead  the  awakened 
interest  of  the  pupils  into  every  branch  of  math- 
ematics. Mathematics  is  the  measure  of  every- 
thing, and  the  pupil  will  constantly  see  men 
measuring  things  with  it  in  the  story  of  passing 
life.  Here  are  some  further  examples  from 
“The  Life  Class:” 

Real  People  and  Real  Things  in  Class  Work 

What  is  the  relative  taxation  of  rich  and  poor  in  Italy  ? 

What  is  the  size  of  the  apple  and  peach  crops  in  this 
country  and  the  wheat  crop  in  India  ? How  do  they  com- 
pare with  former  years  and  what  is  the  percentage  of  in- 
crease or  decrease  ? 

How  do  the  earnings  of  the  railroads  this  year  compare 
with  those  of  last  year,  and  why,  although  they  are  larger, 
have  the  stockholders  been  paid  less  in  dividends  ? Define 
gross  earnings  and  net  earnings. 

What  is  the  relative  cost  of  a university  and  a battle- 
ship ? 

. * Do  you  think  the  bakers  ought  to  raise  the  price  of  bread, 
as  they  are  talking  of  doing,  at  the  present  price  of  flour? 
How  many  pounds  of  flour  are  there  in  a barrel  ? What  is 
the  legal  weight  of  a loaf  of  bread  ? 


19 


Tell  about  the  business  Uncle  Sam  has  been  doing  during 
the  fiscal  year  which  ends  to-day.  What  is  the  fiscal  year? 

What  proportion  of  the  number  of  jacknives  used  in  the 
United  States  are  made  in  this  country  ? 

How  much  will  it  cost  to  build  the  underground  railroad 
in  New  York  and  how  long  will  it  take  to  build  it  ? 

Tell  how  the  author  of  “Alice  in  Wonderland  ” rebuked 
the  little  girl  for  exaggeration  and  how  long  it  would  have 
taken  her  to  deliver  the  2,000,000  kisses  she  sent  him. 
shipments  of  corn  ? ^ 

“How  is  Business  ?” 

Although  the  great  majority  of  men  are,  and 
in  the  nature  of  things  must  continue  to  be,  en- 
gaged in  the  production,  preparation  and  dis- 
tribution of  commodities,  in  what  we  include 
under  the  general  name  of  “ commercial  life,” 
there  has  been  until  recent  years  no  special 
training  in  the  schools  for  this  kind  of  work,  and 
the  general  training  of  the  schools  took  little  or 
no  cognizance  of  the  necessity  for  a knowledge 
of  business  affairs.  What  are  known  as  business 
colleges  are  devoted  almost  exclusively  to  train- 
ing young  men  and  women  for  clerical  work  of 
one  kind  or  another.  In  the  length  of  time  to  be 
devoted  to  the  work  and  with  the  facilities  avail  - 
able  they  can  go  no  further.  Such  a knowledge 
as  will  qualify  a graduate  of  one  of  these  insti- 
tutions for  filling  a clerkship  in  a bank  or  a 
business  house,  he  receives;  but  the  knowledge 
which  will  qualify  him  to  rise  above  such  a posi- 
tion he  must  acquire  as  best  he  may  on  the  out- 
side. Now,  into  the  colleges  are  beginning  to  be 
introduced  commercial  departments,  in  which 
young  men  are  trained  in  a knowledge  of  affairs 
which  will  qualify  them  to  understand  and  as- 
sume the  responsibility  of  the  general  manage- 
ment of  large  commercial  enterprises  or  of  some 
of  their  subdivisions. 


20 


Here  again  in  the  common  school  and  in  the 
business  college  there  is  need  for  a commercial 
education  in  this  broader  sense  which  will  go 
hand  in  hand  and  step  by  step  with  the  scholar’s 
progress  in  the  study  of  the  common  school 
5 course  or  of  stenography,  typewriting,  book- 
keeping and  other  branches  of  which  the  com- 
mercial school  makes  a specialty. 

Following  are  some  examples  of  the  kind  of 

examination  questions”  which  a reading  of 
the  commercial  news  from  week  to  week  will 
qualify  the  student  to  answer: 

Give  some  of  the  genera]  causes  which  make  business 
dull  in  summer. 

Why  does  such  of  the  wheat  as  is  shipped  from  California 
to  Liverpool  go  by  water  instead  of  by  rail  ? 

Why  is  iron  the  barometer  of  trade  ? How  do  large  crops 
help  the  iron  market  ? Why  do  they  raise. interest  rates  ? 

Why  does  a hot  summer  decrease  the  supply  of  window 
glass  ? 

Why  does  a presidential  campaign  check  business  ac 
tivity  ? 

Where  is  the  black  belt  ” of  Russia,  how  large  is  it,  and 
what  is  its  crop  outlook  ? 

What  effect  has  the  war  in  China  had  on  Pacific  Ocean 
trade  ; on  the  price  of  sulphur  ; on  Atlantic  Ocean  trade  ; 
on  our  cotton  industries  ; on  the  Bank  of  England’s  dis- 
count rate  ; on  the  price  of  silver  ? Tell  what  is  meant  by 
the  discount  rate. 

What  do  we  export  to  China  and  what  do  we  import  from 
China  ? 

Why  has  the  lack  of  rain  in  the  Northwest  increased  the 
shipments  of  corn  ? 

What  is  the  outlook  for  the  Georgia  watermelon  crop  ? 

What  is  a “ corner in  a commercial  sense,  and  why  is  it 
dangerous  to  try  to  corner  things  ? Give  an  example  from 
^urrent  commercial  history. 

How  is  business  ?” 

What  plan  is  being  considered  by  American  millers  for 
shipping  less  wheat  and  more  flour  to  Europe  ? 

What  important  fish  industry  is  in  its  active  season  in 
^.he  State  of  Washington  ? Describe  how  it  is  carried  on. 


21 


What  is  taking  place  in  the  iron  ore  business  of  the  Great 
Lakes  just  now  ? 

What  is  the  German  meat  bill,  and  who  are  the  Agrarians  ? 

How  large  is  our  meat  business  with  Germany  ? 

Name  some  important  products  that  will  be  harvested 
during  the  present  month  and  tell  what  parts  of  the  world 
they  will  come  from. 

Why  has  the  price  of  boots  and  shoes  advanced  ? 

How  will  the  scarcity  of  coal  in  Europe  help  the  silk  w 
industry  in  this  country  ? What  large  concern  doing  busi- 
ness as  a partnership  has  just  been  incorporated  ? What  is 
a corporation  and  what  is  it  good  for  ? Illustrate  by  a well 
known  fable  and  an  example  from  one  of  Henty’s  stories. 

Tell  of  an  important  effect  of  competition  in  business 
and  illustrate  by  the  case  of  the  “L”  road  and  the  under- 
ground road  in  New  York  City. 

What  is  a dividend  and  what  Is  a deficit  ? 

How  has  the  Cuban  war  stimulated  the  beet  sugar  busi- 
ness in  the  United  States  ? How  much  did  the  Cuban  cane 
sugar  crop  fall  off  on  account  of  the  war  ? Show  on  the 
map  the  beet  sugar  section  of  the  United  States.  How 
much  does  it  cost  to  put  up  a beet  sugar  factory  with  a 
capacity  of  300  tons  a day  ? 

W 

FOURTH  ARTICLE 

THE  APPLICATION  TO  LIFE  OF  DRAWING,  LAN- 
GUAGE, HISTORY  AND  CIVIL  GOVERNMENT 

It  may  seem  a far  cry  from  Arithmetic  and  the 
beet  sugar  business  to  the  fine  arts.  But  the 
same  truth  which  applies  to  the  study  of  Arith- 
metic applies  to  the  Drawing  Lesson;  what  is 
wanted  is  to  stimulate  an  interest  in  the  study, 
to  give  a motive  for  studying. 

r 

What  Starts  Artists  to  Drawing 

If  somebody  should  tell  you  of  an  eminent 
artist,  (with  whose  life  you  were  not  familiar), 
that  he  was  first  discovered  by  his  parents  mak-^ 
ing  straight  lines  and  drawing  perfect  circles— 

22 


going  through  the  gymnastics  of  art;  or  of  a 
writer  whose  literary  ability  was  first  displayed 
in  parsing;  or  of  a speaker  whose  talent  first 
showed  itself  in  analyzing  sentences  in  the  gram- 
mar class,  you  would  doubt  the  accuracy  of  the 
statement  because,  in  the  case  of  all  eminent 
men  about  whom  you  have  read,  their  talents 
were  first  displayed  in  attempts  to  express  a 
thing  which  interested  them — as  the  talent  of 
Giotto  was  revealed  in  his  attempts  to  reproduce 
on  the  rocks  the  forms  of  his  beloved  sheep.  The 
Drawing  Lesson  is  simply  the  Language  Lesson 
in  another  form.  Drawing  is  a method  of  ex- 
pression, the  origin  of  written  language,  since 
letters  are  simply  the  conventional  forms  which 
grew  out  of  the  pictures  first  made  by  primitive 
people  to  convey  information.  The  recognized 
fact  that  children  in  their  mental  growth  go 
over  the  route  taken  by  their  ancestors  in  the 
development  from  barbarism  to  civilization,  the 
fact  which  unlocks  so  many  secrets  in  child 
study,  explains  why  children  prefer  the  Draw- 
ing to  the  Language  Lesson.  As  drawing  came 
first  with  their  ancestors,  so  it  comes  first  with 
them,  and  as  with  his  ancestors  so  with  the 
child,  he  will  draw  best  when  he  has  something 
to  tell.  Left  to  himself  the  child  with  a talent 
for  art  always  goes  to  life  for  his  inspiration. 
The  modern  drawing  teacher  does  not  begin 
with  drills  in  meaningless  lines,  just  as  the 
teaching  of  reading  and  language  no  longer  be- 
gins with  the  alphabet. 

Keeping  the  Scholars  in  the  Art  Atmosphere 
Every  issue  of  a properly  conducted  school 
newspaper  will  contain  examples  and  inspira- 
tions for  the  Drawing  Lesson;  in  such  simple 
23 


forms  as  insects  and  flowers  and  birds  when  the 
insects  and  flowers  are  in  the  fields  and  the 
birds  are'  flying  over  them;  in  the  portraits  of 
eminent  men  when  their  names  are  on  other 
men’s  tongues;  in  a painting  of  a storm  in  the 
season  of  storms;  in  the  reproductions  of  paint- 
ings and  accounts  of  the  artists  and  their  work 
when  these  paintings  have  been  placed  on  view 
in  the  great  exhibitions  or  in  connection  with 
some  timely  subject  in  the  text. 

Similarly  in  Drawing  Word  Pictures 

Language,  as  it  used  to  be  taught,  consisted 
mainly  in  learning  grammatical  rules.  To-day 
it  consists  chiefly  in  forming  the  habit  of  the  cor- 
rect use  of  words  in  speaking  and  writing,  in 
reading  the  best  literature  and  in  aiding  the 
pupil  to  express  himself  in  oral  and  written  lan- 
guage on  subjects  in  which  he  is  interested. 
The  learning  of  the  rules  of  grammar  is  for  the 
purpose  of  generalizing  knowledge  which  he 
should  possess  before  the  rules  are  given  him. 

For  developing  the  reasoning  faculties  and  the 
ability  to  express  one’s  self  quickly  and  clearly 
as  one  is  constantly  required  to  do  in  actual  life, 
no  opportunity  which  the  school  can  afford 
equals  the  old-fashioned  debating  society;  pro- 
vided always  that  the  debates  are  not  concerned 
with  such  vague  and  “ungraspable  ” proposi- 
tions as  “Which  was  the  greatest  general,  Na- 
poleon or  the  Duke  of  Wellington?”  or  “ Re- 
solved, That  intemperance  kills  more  men  than 
war.”  What  the  debating  society  needs  is  a 
live  and  definite  subject  for  discussion;  the  sub- 
jects which  are  being  discussed  on  the  streets, 
in  Congress,  in  the  exchanges,  in  the  newspa- 
pers. Men  do  not  need  to  be  incited  to  talk 
24 


politics  during  a political  campaign.  So  the  de- 
bating society  and  its  good  work  will  go  on 
automatically  if  the  pupils  who  are  to  take  part 
in  it  are  sufficiently  interested  and  informed  on 
the  subjects  which  men  and  women  are  talking 
about. 

Having  Something  to  Say  and  Having  to  Say 
Something 

Remarking  upon  the  difficulty  of  teaching 
language  in  the  routine  fashion— upon  the  eager- 
ness with  which  a child  expresses  himself  at 
home  and  his  reluctance  to  express  himself  at 
all  on  set  topics  at  school— Professor  Dewey  says 
there  is  all  the  difference  in  the  world  between 
having  something  to  say  and  having  to  say 
something. 

Vivid  use  of  language— that  is  to- say  the  right 
us — comes  from  experiences,  and  the  child-mind 
should  be  kept  supplied  with  fresh  and  vivid 
experiences  by  informing  him  of  the  things  of 
permanent  interest  and  value  which  are  taking 
place  outside  the  narrower  limits  of  his  home 
and  play  grounds. 

In  the  school  newspaper  should  be  found  an 
endless  supply  of  subjects,  with  suggestions  as 
to  their  method  of  treatment;  subjects  which 
are  equally  adaptable  to  the  brief  answers  in  the 
various  classes  in  the  studies  to  which  they  re- 
late, and  to  the  more  elaborate  presentation  of 
the  composition  and  the  debate.  An  important 
feature  in  connection  with  language  work  is  the 
selection  of  passages  from  standard  literature  in 
connection  with  current  events,  the  birthdays  of 
eminent  authors  and  historic  anniversaries. 
Enlarging  the  Vocabulary  by  a Natural  Process 

The  editor  of  such  a paper  should  avoid  “talk- 
25 


ing  down”  to  his  readers,  and,  while  giving 
preference  to  the  Anglo-Saxon  for  its  strength 
and  simplicity,  should  not  attempt  to  confine 
himself  to  “easy  words  of  one  syllable.”  The 
right  word  is  not  always  the  shortest  word  nor 
the  one  which  is  current  on  the  play  ground. 
One  important  object  of  such  a paper  should  be 
to  teach  its  readers  to  use  a dictionary  and  books 
of  reference  by  interesting  him  in  subjects  which 
require  such  research  on  his  part  in  order  to 
fully  understand  them. 

Following  are  some  examples  of  the  usefulness 
of  a school  newspaper  in  language  work: 

Tell  the  story  of  the  Irishman  who  became  a great  man- 
darin. 

Tell  who  the  new  King  and  Queen  of  Italy  are. 

Describe  the  new  Indian  reservation  which  is  soon  to  be 
opened  to  settlement. 

Tell  about  the  Emperor  of  China,  how  he  was  educated 
and  how  his  education  helped  to  bring  on  the  Boxer  up- 
rising. 

Tell  about  the  life  and  characteristics  of  the  late  King 
Humbert,  and  which  of  his  traits  was  most  worthy  of  imi- 
tation ? 

What  author  is  Senator  Lodge  said  to  have  plagiarized  in 
one  of  his  speeches  ? Do  you  think  it  was  a plagiarism  ? 

Who  has  just  been  re-elected  President  of  Mexico  ? Tell 
about  his  adventurous  career  and  what  he  has  done  for  his 
country. 

Describe  the  adventures  of  the  school  ship  Saratoga. 

Tell  about  the  battle  of  Tientsin  as  described  in  the  diary 
of  the  sixteen-year-old  boy  who  witnessed  it. 

By  whom  have  Kipling’s  writings  been  severely  criticised 
recently  and  what  do  you  think  of  the  criticism  ? 

What  famous  Scotch  writer  is  buried  on  one  of  the  Sa- 
moan Islands,  and  how  does  his  grave  now  come  to  be  on 
German  soil  ? 

Give  the  title  of  some  of  Ludwig  Knaus’  paintings  in  the 
original  German. 

Translate  the  ode  of  Horace  which  the  children  of  Rome 
26 


have  been  singing  at  the  anniversary  of  the  founding  of 
the  city. 

On  what  day  of  this  week  does  the  anniversary  of 
Goethe’s  birth  occur  ? Translate  “ Mignon  ” from  German 
into  English;  from  English  into  German. 

On  what  day  of  this  week  does  the  anniversary  of  the 
birth  of  Oliver  Wendell  Holmes  occur?  Recite  “The 
Chambered  Nautilus.” 

Tell  in  a 200-word  composition  what  committees  of  the 
House  and  Senate  are  now  inspecting  lake  harbors  andjhow 
lake  harbors  are  kept  in  good  condition. 

Write  a composition  of  200  words  describing  the  butterfly 
farm  in  New  York  City. 

The  “ sermon  ” of  1,500  words  in  “ The  Children’s  Church” 
entitled  “ All  the  World  Within  Four  Walls”  was  written 
about  what  could  be  seen  in  the  picture  by  the  late  Thomas 
Faed  which  illustrates  it.  See  how  well  you  can  put  in 
500  words  the  story  told  in  the  painting  by  Phillippoteaux 
and  reproduced  in  our  last  issup,  called  “ An  Episode  of 
the  Retreat  from  Russia.” 

History  Lessons  Past  and  Present 

The  great  utility  of  the  study  of  current  events 
in  connection  with  the  school  studies  called 
History  and  Civil  Government  is  obvious.  As  a 
prominent  educator  said  in  speaking  of  the  value 
of  a newspaper  to  teachers  and  school  children, 
“Progressive  History  teachers  know  that  the 
most  valuable  study  of  History  is  the  process  of 
making  it.”  Past  history  is  only  valuable  as  it 
helps  us  to  understand  the  history  of  our  own 
times.  Such  a paper  as  we  have  been  describing 
would  be  obviously  devoted  more  to  current 
history  than  to  past  history.  Here  are  some 
examples  : 

What  was  the  Porto  Rican  Bill,  what  became  of  it,  and 
what  were  the  arguments  for-and  against  it  ? 

What  is  the  claim  of  the  United  States  against  the  Sul- 
tan of  Turkey  ? 

What  is  the  “ Open  Door  ” policy  and  what  has  happened 
to  make  it  talked  about  ? 


27 


What  has  been  done  with  the  Nicaragua  Canal  Bill? 
Show  on  the  map  the  route  proposed  for  the  canal.  What 
is  the  limit  as  to  cost  fixed  by  the  bill  ? 

What  is  pelagic  sealing  and  why  have  attempts  been 
made  to  get  a law  passed  prohibiting  it  ? 

What  position  did  President  McKinley  take  with  refer- 
ence to  the  mission  of  the  Boer  envoys  and  what  was  his 
reason  for  taking  it?  What  is  the  trouble  between  France 
and  Morocco  ? Name  some  of  the  most  imnortant  measures 
passed  by  the  Fifty-Sixth  Congress. 

But  it  is  not  only  in  its  teaching  of  the  most 
important  history,  that  which  is  being  made, 
and  in  giving  a purpose  and  direction  to  the 
study  of  past  history,  that  such  a paper  is  of 
first  importance.  Events  are  constantly  occur- 
ring which  give  present  interest  to  historical 
events  and  which  can  be  used  to  great  advantage 
in  school  work.  For  example  : 

Which  two  of  the  greatest  battles  of  the  civil  war  has 
just  been  commemorated  by  a monument  ? What  was  the 
other  battle  referred  to  ? 

Tell  about  a book  which  gives  a new  account  of  the  bat- 
tle of  Cedar  Creek  and  what  it  says  about  Sheridan’s  ride. 

Who  was  Rochambeau,  where  has  a monument  just  been 
erected  to  him,  and  why  is  he  of  special  interest  to  the 
children  of  the  United  States  ? What  other  Frenchman  is 
gratefully  remembered  by  the  children  of  this  country  and 
how  have  the  school  children  shown  their  appreciation  of 
his  services  ? 

What  are  the  important  historic  anniversaries  which 
come  during  the  present  week  ? 

What  American  artist  of  note  died  recently  ? Name  some 
of  his  paintings  commemorating  events  in  American  his- 
tory. 

What  facts  have  recently  been  discovered  with  regard  to 
the  Plains  of  Abraham  and  what  historic  event  took  place 
there  ? 

What  was  the  Louisiana  Purchase  and  how  does  St.  Louis 
propose  to  celebrate  it  1 

In  what  what  way  has  the  Monroe  Doctrine  been  brought 
28 


up  in  connection  with  our  relations  with  Germany  ? What 
is  the  Monroe  Doctrine  ? 

A Serious  Omission  in  History  Teaching 

Not  only  does  the  school  History  lack  the  con- 
nection with  current  life  which  would  make  it 
most  interesting,  impressive  and  valuable,  but 
the  unfortunate  fact  will  be  recognized  as  soon 
as  mentioned  that  while  it  tells  so  much  of  war, 
is  in  fact  largely  a history  of  wars,  it  tells  little 
or  nothing  about  the  cost  of  war,  nor  of  the  tre- 
mendous financial  preparation  and  far-reaching 
financial  consequences  of  war.  In  the  history 
of  our  own  country,  for  example,  we  not  only 
omit  all  this  information— of  far  greater  present 
interest  and  importance  than  the  stories  of  bat- 
tles and  the  numbering  of  the  slain— but,  while 
we  teach  the  story  of  the  Civil  War  and  the 
bitterness  that  brought  it  on,  we  do  not  tell  how 
the  divided  flag  and  its  divided  people  have  been 
knit  together  again  in  the  looms  of  industry. 

The  True  Method  of  Teaching  Citizenship 

Whatever  else  he  may  do  the  boy  will  be  a 
citizen,  and  it  is  of  the  first  importance  to  him- 
self and  to  his  country  that  he  should  be  deeply 
interested  in  and  understand  the  duties  and 
privileges  of  citizenship.  Yet  the  study  of  this 
subject,  if  confined  entirely  to  the  text-book 
called  Civil  Government,  is,  if  we  may  accord 
that  distinction  to  any  one  individual  study, 
probably  the  dryest  in  the  list.  What  he  needs 
is  to  see  Civil  Government  in  practice,  and  so 
be  able  to  understand  such  questions  as  the 
following  : 

What  is  to  be  done  in  Cuba  toward  making  a constitution 
for  that  country,  and  how  are  constitutions  made  ? 

Tell  the  principal  “ planks  of  the  Democratic  and  Re- 


29 


publican  platforms  and  what  they  mean.  What  is  meant 
by  imperialism  ? By  the  ratio  of  16  to  1 ? What  is  a mon 
opoly  ? What  committee  in  a national  convention  pre- 
pares the  platform  ? 

What  are  the  duties  of  the  president  of  the  United 
States  ? Of  the  vice-president  ? How  old  would  you  have- 
to  be  before  you  could  be  chosen  president  ? 

Why  would  it  be  a hard  thing  for  the  European  powers 
to  govern  China,  and  how  are  some  other  countries  in  Asia 
governed  by  Europeans  ? 

Name  some  of  the  principal  arguments  for  and  against 
the  election  of  United  States  Senators  by  the  people. 

Tell  about  the  rights  of  naturalized  Americans  and  the 
attitude  of  Austria  toward  a young  Austrian  who  left  his 
country  without  performing  the  army  service  required  of 
him  What  are  the  terms  of  the  peace  proposal  made  by 
the  Filipinos  ? 

What  is  the  consular  service  and  what  does  it  do  for  the 
business  interests  of  the  country  ? Who  is  at  the  head  of 
this  department  of  our  government  ? 

What  is  the  National  Civic  Federation  and  what  is  its 
purpose  ? 

Tell  how  the  city  of  Paris  is  governed.  What  is  the  mat- 
ter with  its  fire  department  ? How  does  the  amount  of 
money  spent  by  the  city  on  its  schools  compare  with  that 
spent  by  other  cities  ? 

What  does  “ Buffalo  Bill  ” think  about  the  buffalo  and  to 
what  Congressional  committee  has  the  bill  for  the  preser- 
vation of  the  buffalo  been  presented  ? 

Describe  the  system  of  self-government  used  in  the  John 
Crerar  grammar  school.  What  do  you  think  of  it? 

Tell  how  the  coming  of  age  of  the  young  Crown  Prince  of 
Germany  was  celebrated.  If  you  were  asked  to  step  over 
and  become  king  of  Germany,  wbat  would  you  have  to  do 
and  what  would  you  have  to  know  before  they  would  let 
you  be  king  ? 


30 


FIFTH  ARTICLE 

USE  OF  THE  SCHOOL  NEWSPAPER  IN  PHYSIOL- 
OGY, PHYSICS  AND  NATURAL  HISTORY. 

THE  ONLY  TRUE  METHOD  OF  COR= 
RELATION  AN  EASY  ONE. 

Nature  Study  is  one  of  the  most  pleasant  and 
satisfactory  branches  of  school  work.  Chil- 
dren take  naturally  to  animals  and  love  to  learn 
their  habits  and  characteristics.  Here  again, 
however,  a great  deal  can  be  accomplished  by 
connecting  the  study  with  current  life.  Not 
only  do  the  truths  of  Natural  History  thus 
make  a more  vivid  and  therefore  lasting  impres- 
sion, but  by  the  natural  correlation  established 
whenever  you  examine  into  a fact  living,  as  all 
living  facts  do,  in  an  environment  of  other  facts, 
you  are  teaching  other  things  beside  Natural 
History.  For  example,  when  you  ask  why  has 
Congress  passed  a law  prohibiting  the  importa- 
tion of  the  mongoose,  the  pupil, in  order  to  be  able 
to  answer,  must  not  only  tell  about  the  habits 
of  the  mongoose  but  Congressional  proceedings 
begin  to  be  an  interesting  and  familiar  subject. 
So  the  question  under  “Civil  Government”  about 
the  buffalo,  if  it  is  discussed  in  the  Civil  Govern- 
ment class  and  stress  laid  upon  the  measures  to 
be  taken  to  preserve  the  buffalo  and  how  they 
are  to  be  carried  out,  is  a matter  of  Civil  Govern- 
ment. If  discussed  in  the  Natural  History  class 
and  special  attention  given  to  the  buffalo,  then 
it  is  a matter  of  Natural  History. 

Current  Natural  History  Lessons 

Here  are  some  further  examples  of  Natural 
History  topics  which  are  “newsy”: 

Tell  about  the  habits  of  the  Belgian  hare  and  the  five 
tandard  varieties. 


What  is  the  jackrabbit  doing  that  the  farmers  in  the 
Mississippi  don't  like  ? 

Describe  some  varieties  of  the  dragon  fly,  tell  what  good 
it  is  in  places  infested  by  mosquitoes  and  what  experi- 
ments are  being  made  with  it  in  New  Jersey  ? 

Tell  about  the  habits  of  the  Hessian  fly  and  what  the 
farmers  do  to  get  rid  of  it.  Where  did  it  come  from  origin- 
ally and  how  did  it  get  here  ? 

Tell  the  difference  between  mushrooms  and  poisonous 
things  which  look  like  them.  Describe  and  draw  some 
poisonous  plant  commonly  met  with  in  the  woods. 

Where  do  the  pineapples  now  on  the  market  come  from  ? 
Do  they  grow  in  the  house  or  out  of  doors  ? Tell  how  they 
are  raised  and  the  expenses  and  profits  of  raising  them. 

Tell  something  about  ants  and  their  habits  and  about  a 
prominent  Englishman  who  carries  them  in  his  pockets. 

What  is  the  lebbek  tree,  where  is  it  found  and  of  what 
value  will  it  probably  be  in  the  arid  regions  of  the  United 
States.  Where  are  those  regions  ? 

What  do  the  Government  experiment  stations  study 
grass  for?  What  are  the  qualities  of  blue  grama  grass 
that  are  said  to  make  it  specially  valuable  ? 

Men  Better  Than  Manikins  in  Physiology 

A boy  takes  as  naturally  to  the  study  of 
Physiology  and  Hygiene,  outside  the  school- 
room, as  he  does  to  fresh  air.  It  is  only  when 
you  make  a dry  abstraction  of  the  subject  that 
his  mind  gets  away  from  it.  The  use  of  a mani- 
kin to  show  the  structure  of  the  body  and  the 
functions  of  its  parts  is  an  important  step  in  ad- 
vance, but  when  you  can  use  living  men  for  the 
same  purpose  you  have  gone  infinitely  farther. 
Here  are  some  examples: 

Why  is  sugar  being  given  to  college  athletes  ? 

What  are  mosquitoes  supposed  to  have  to  do  with  the 
spread  of  malaria  and  in  what  way  is  a theory  regarding 
it  about  to  be  tested  ? 

What  great  bridge  is  being  built  in  the  East?  Describe 
the  work  of  a bridge  builder,  tell  what  wages  he  gets,  and 
tell  about  the  bridge  builder  whose  life  was  saved  by  Ins 
ganglia  when  his  brain  failed  him. 

32 


\_ 


*Tell  how  Explorer  Wellman  broke  his  leg  in  an  ice  cre- 
vasse on  his  way  to  the  North  Pole.  What  part  of  his  leg 
was  broken,  what  did  the  surgeons  do  and  why  did  they 
do  it  ? 

Why  did  the  removal  of  a clot  of  blood  from  the  optic 
nerve  of  a woman  who  had  not  seen  for  seven  years  restore 
her  sight  ? Show  the  location  of  the  optic  nerve  and  ex- 
plain why  this  operation  produced  this  effect. 

What  prominent  public  official  in  England  has  just  died 
of  gastritis.  What  causes  gastritis  and  what  should  be  the 
habits  of  one  who  is  inclined  to  gastritis  ? 

What  important  discovery  has  just  been  made  in  the  ad- 
ministration of  cocaine  in  surgical  operations  ? 

Why  is  its  use  superior  to  that  of  chloroform  or  ether  ? 

Why  does  the  injection  of  cocaine  into  the  spinal  dolumn 
make  the  patient  insensible  to  pain  below  the  £>oint  of  in- 
jection, and  why*  does  he  not  become  unconscious  as  he 
does  when  taking  ether  or  chloroform  ? 

What  advantage  has  this  method  of  stopping  pain  over 
the  use  ofj  chloroform  and  similar  anaesthetics,  and  why  ? 

Why  is  rowing  poor  practice  for  a football  player  and 
why  is  baseball  good  practice  for  him  ? 

There  you  have  Physiology  “ hot  off  the  bat,” 
as  the  boy  would  say. 

How  Physics  Stops  Just  Short  of  Life 

The  study  of  Physics,  which  has  gone  farther 
than  any  other  study  in  bringing  the  pupil  in 
contact  with  realities,  by  that  very  fact  shows 
most  clearly  the  essential  limitations  of  the 
school  and  the  text-book  in  the  work  of  educa- 
tion and  the  need  there  is  for  a periodical  source 
of  information  which  will  supplement  the  work 
of  the  book  and  the  teacher.  In  one  of  the 
standard  textbooks  on  Physics,  quoting  from 
Superintendent  Seaver  of  the  Boston  Public 
Schools,  the  author  says:  “It  is  a cardinal 
principle  in  modern  pedagogy  that  the  mind 
gains  a real  and  adequate  knowledge  of  things 
only  in  the  presence  of  the  things  themselves. 

33 


Hence  the  first  step  in  all  good  teaching  is  an 
appeal  to  the  observing  powers.  * * * The 

theory  goes  even  further  and  declares  in  general 
that  no  teaching  which  is  not  objective  can  prop- 
erly be  called  teaching  at  all.” 

Yet  a demonstration  of  the  properties  of  air  by 
the  laboratory  air  pump,  while  in  one  sense  it 
brings  the  pupil  into  the  presence  of  the  thing , 
in  another  does  not.  The  thing  from  the  prac- 
tical standpoint  as  well  as  from  the  standpoint 
of  the- pupil,  is  ” How  do  men  use  the  properties 
of  air  in  their  business,  and  how  would  I use 
them  if  I went  into  that  business?” 

Give  a boy  an  opportunity  to  hear  a pneumatic 
hammer  driving  rivets  in  a sky-scraper,  like  a 
gigantic  woodpecker  trying  to  drill  a hole  into 
some  metallic  roof  in  a land  of  giants,  and  he 
will  pursue  you  with  a running  fire  of  questions 
from  the  street  into  the  laboratory  and  drink  in 
with  eager  eyes  and  ears  all  you  will  show  and 
tell  him  about  those  properties  of  air  which  en- 
able a pneumatic  hammer  to  be  operated.  The 
apparatus  of  the  laboratory  are  the  surgical  in- 
struments, so  to  speak,  by  which  the  complex 
organization  of  physical  laws  in  an  operating 
machine  are  dissected.  What  the  pupil  needs  is 
to  see  these  laws  knit  together  in  the  complete 
organism — the  machine — and  actually, or  through 
clear  and  vivid  description  and  pictorial  illustra- 
tion, to  see  the  machine  in  operation. 

“ Live  Steam  ” in  the  Laboratory 

In  the  book  referred  to,  the  steam  engine  is 
described  briefly,  but  the  form  of  steam  engine 
with  which  the  boy  is  most  familiar  and  which 
attracts  him  most— the  locomotive— is  presented 
34 


very  briefly  and  he  is  told  to  “ ask  an  engineer 
to  explain  from  the  object  the  offices  of  such 
parts  as  you  (that  is  to  say  the  boy)  do  not  un- 
derstand.” Here  is  an  expression  of  a distinct 
desire  on  the  part  of  the  author  of  the  book  and 
the  teacher  in  Physics  to  be  put  in  touch  with 
life,  but  the  impracticability  of  depending  upon 
a locomotive  engineer  in  active  service  to  stop 
and  tell  any  large  number  of  pupils  about  the 
parts  of  his  engine  is  obvious.  Moreover  it  does 
not  follow  that  if  he  could  be  induced  to  address 
the  school  he  could  make  the  points  entirely 
clear.  Knowing  how  to  run  a locomotive  and 
how  to  explain  its  operation  to  school  boys  re- 
quires two  different  kinds  of  talent  and  training. 

This  book  tells  nothing  of  the  latest  applica- 
tion of  steam  in  the  steam  engine  called 
the  turbine,  in  which  the  principle  of  the 
boy’s  whirligig  has,  by  the  genius  of  Parsons, 
been  set  to  work  in  a machine  which  Lord  Kel- 
vin says  marks  the  greatest  advance  in  steam 
engineering  since  the  days  of  Watt.  It  tells 
something  of  the  telegraph,  but  says  nothing 
about  Marconi  and  wireless  telegraphy ; in  treat- 
ing of  electricity  it  tells  about  Volta  and  Ampere, 
but  does  not  tell  of  the  latest  developments  in 
electricity  nor  of  the  men  whose  names  are  as- 
sociated with  them.  Volta  and  Ampere  are 
mainly  interesting  as  being  among  the  noble  an- 
cestors of  the  electrical  world  as  it  is  to-day. 
How  quickly  a boy  knocking  about  a telegraph 
office  picks  up  what  there  is  to  learn.  Here  Ed- 
ison got  his  training  and  here,  through  the  pages 
of  a paper  printing  mechanical  news  for  young 
people,  other  boys  may  be  greatly  assisted  in 
getting  theirs.  In  the  book  he  is  told  that  a 


3* 


cylinder  weighs  less  than  a solid  shaft  of  equal 
strength,  but  this  fact  will  be  seen  in  actual  op- 
eration in  the  great  water  wheels  about  to  be 
put  in  at  Nigara  Falls. 

The  Only  True  Method  of  Correlation  an  Easy  One 

In  order  truly  to  learn  a principle  or  a fact,  as 
previously  observed,  two  things  are  necessary- 
first,  to  see  its  application  to  life;  second,  to  see 
its  relationship  to  other  facts  and  principles; 
Knowledge  is  cut  up  into  sections  only  in  the 
school  room;  in  real  life,  as  William  Dean  How- 
ells, says,  in  speaking  of  the  value  of  a school 
newspaper,  “ all  facts  are  brethren  and  live  to- 
gether.” In  real  life  and  business,  Arithmetic, 
Geography,  History,  Mathematics,  Chemistry 
and  all  the  rest  are  parts  of  one  science,  each  co- 
operating with  the  other  in  carrying  on  the 
work  of  the  individual  and  the  world.  It  is  not 
difficult  to  correlate  facts  if  you  bring  them  into 
the  school  room  as  you  find  them;  the  difficulty 
is  to  separate  them  and  then  give  a true  idea  of 
them. 

A foundryman,  for  example,  must  know  where 
to  buy  his  iron  and  how  much  to  buy,  and  where 
he  can  buy  cheapest— that  is  a Geographical- 
Commercial-Mathematical  problem;  he  must 
know  the  kinds  of  iron  to  use  and  how  to  mix 
them  in  making  his  castings — that  is  a Chemical- 
Mathematical  example  which  he  works  every 
day,  and  if  he  doesn’t  get  it  right  he  must  rub 
the  resultant  casting  off  his  slate,  so  to  speak, 
and  do  it  over  again;  he  must  design  his  casting 
so  that  it  will  be  of  the  right  size  and  shape  with 
the  strength  in  the  right  place;  that  is  a Me- 
chanical-Mathematical proposition;  in  building 
up  a trade  for  his  castings,  he  must  know  how 
36 


to  talk  to  people  who  are  interested  in  his  kind 
of  castings,  to  write  letters  about  them,  to  de- 
sign advertisements  of  them— that’s  Language 
and  a good  deal  of  a Fine  Art. 

Like  Boys  in  a Ball  Game 

Here  we  see  school  studies  jumping  about,  now 
here,  now  there,  like  the  pitchers,  the  batters 
and  the  fielders  in  a ball  game,  each  independent 
in  one  way,  but  quite  dependent  in  another.  In 
the  old  school  room,  the  Geography  didn’t  know 
the  Arithmetic  and  the  Arithmetic  never  heard 
of  the  Spelling-Book  and  the  Language  Lesson; 
the  Physics  and  Chemistry,  which  always 
stopped  just  short  of  telling  what  they  were 
good  for  in  the  world’s  work,  were  left  isolated 
from  all  the  rest.  What  the  pupil  needs  is  what, 
modern  educational  science  calls  “correlation.” 
He  needs  not  only  to  have  life  and  meaning  put 
into  each  individual  study,  but  he  needs  to  have 
these  studies  united  in  the  larger  life  of  the 
world  outside  the  four  walls  of  his  school  room. 
Tell  what  the  world  is  doing  from  week  to  week 
worth  knowing  and  you  have  established  the 
only  perfect  correlation— the  correlation  which 
is  true  to  nature,  to  life,  to  reality. 

It  is  obviously  wrong,  therefore,  to  speak  of 
teaching  “ Current  Events  ” as  a separate  study. 
Current  events  can  only  be  studied  with  the  best 
results  by  taking  up  each  individual  event  in 
connection  with  the  special  school  study  to 
which,  it  relates.  It  is  precisely  in  proportion  as 
your  teaching  of  current  events  is  free  from  cut 
and  dried  methods  that  you  will  get  the  most  out 
of  them.  In  proportion  as  yourself  and  your 
pupils  are  “ charged  ” with  current  events,  with 


37 


the  electric  interest  of  the  common  life  of  which 
your  lives  form  a part,  that  your  pupils  and 
yourself  will  make  school  work  and  class  work  a 
living,  inspiring,  progressive  thing  which  con- 
stantly moves  forward,  which  constantly  gets 
somewhere. 

Life  Knowledge  a Natural  Growth 

The  severest  criticism  the  Greeks,  the  first 
masters  of  oratory,  could  pass  upon  an  oration 
was  that  it  smelled  of  the  lamp.  Don’t  let  your 
lessons  smell  of  the  lamp.  Don’t  think  because 
you  have  such  a newspaper  as  has  been  de- 
scribed in  your  school  room  and  the  children 
have  it  in  their  homes  that  the  whole  result  de- 
sired is  accomplished.  The  effect  of  keeping 
step  with  the  world  is  cumulative.  Get  in  touch 
with  it  every  day;  keep  in  touch  with  it  all  the 
year  round.  Read  your  newspaper  and  encour- 
age your  pupils  to  read  it  thoroughly.  New  ac- 
cessions of  knowledge  will  collect  around  pre- 
vious accessions  and  lead  each  other  on.  You 
will  get  more  out  of  it  the  second  month  than 
you  did  the  first  and  see  a hundred  more  ways 
of  using  it  the  third  term  than  you  did  the  sec- 
ond. You  are  interested  in  your  own  home  pa- 
per because  you  know  the  people;  it  is  dry  as  dust 
to  everybody  who  does  not  know  them.  So  inter- 
est in  the  world’s  affairs  will  grow  as  you  and 
your  pupils  know  more  about  them. 

Outside  the  school  the  boy  goes  like  a railroad 
train  ; inside  the  school,  like  a push  cart.  What 
you  want  to  do,  and  what  the  school  newspaper 
will  help  you  do,  is  to  take  him  through  his  stud- 
ies at  something  like  the  old  gait  by  bringing  his 
interest  in  life  into  the  school  room  and  hitching 
it  on  to  the  school  work. 


38 


SIXTH  ARTICLE 

FACTS  IN  THE  FIELD.  KNOWLEDGE  NOT  IN  TEXT 
BOOKS.  HOW  TO  FIND  WHAT  A 
BOY’S  TALENTS  ARE. 

In  the  examples  all  eady  given  in  connection 
with  previous  studies  are  numerous  instances  of 
true  correlation,  since  in  facts  taken  from  life  it 
is  not  possible  always  to  entirely  separate  them 
from  one  another  ; they  are  not  built  that  way. 
When  you  ask,  for  example,  what  is  the  cause 
for  the  rise  in  the  price  of  camphor,  you  are 
teaching  at  the  same  time  History,  Geography 
and  Mathematics,  and— more  important  still- 
are  showing  the  relation  of  them  to  commercial 
life;  the  reason  for  the  rise  being  that  Japan 
has  come  into  possession  of  the  Island  of  Formosa 
upon  which  camphor  is  produced  and  has  a 
monopoly  of  the  trade.  This  is  History  and 
Geography,  and  the  resultant  change  in  price  is 
Mathematics  in  action. 

When  you  tell  why  vessels  of  a certain  type 
can  now  go  from  ports  of  the  Great  Lakes  to 
Liverpool  you  are  teaching  Physics  and  Geogra- 
phy and  Commerce  ; when  you  show  the  route  of 
the  road  from  Damascus  to  Mecca  for  which  the 
Sultan  has  levied  a ten  per  cent,  tax,  you  are 
teaching  Geography  and  Commerce  and  Civil 
Government  ; if  you  show  on  the  map  where  a 
statue  is  to  be  erected  to  Hamlet,  you  are  teach- 
ing Geography  and  Literature  ; if  you  locate  the 
point  in  Greece  where  the  Greeks  have  set  a 
statue  to  Gladstone,  you  are  teaching  Geography 
and  History— and  a love  for  liberty;  if  you  have 
the  scholars  in  your  Latin  class  translate  the 
ode  of  Horace  which  the  children  of  Rome  have 
been  singing  in  celebration  of  the  anniversary 
39 


of  the  founding  of  the  city,  you  are  obviously 
teaching  Latin  as  well  as  Roman  History  ; if 
you  tell  them  in  your  Nature  class  about  ants 
and  their  habits  and  how  Sir  John  Lubbock  car- 
ries ants  in  his  pocket,  you  are  not  only  teach- 
ing Natural  History,  but  you  are  teaching  who 
Sir  John  Lubbock  is  ; if  you  dwell  upon  the  fact 
that  he  is  a banker,  you  are  helping  to  interest 
them  in  banking,  and  if  you  add  that  he  is  a 
member  of  Parliament  and  tell  about  the  duties 
of  a member  of  Parliament,  you  are  teaching 
Civil  Government. 

In  this  way  the  scholar  may  learn  from  the 
ant  all  that  the  sluggard  might  have  learned— 
and  a great  deal  more. 

If  when  you  are  talking  about  mosquitoes  and 
what  they  are  supposed  to  have  to  do  with  the 
spread  of  malaria,  the  method  of  transition 
from  Natural  History  into  Physiology  is  easy 
and  obvious,  and  if,  when  you  are  describing  the 
great  East  River  bridge  in  New  York,  and  tell 
how  the  ganglia  of  one  of  the  workmen  saved 
his  life  after  his  brain  grew  dizzy  and  failed  him, 
you  have  not  only  impressed  in  a most  dramatic 
and  impressive  way  the  function  and  utility  of 
the  ganglia,  but  you  have  breathed  the  breath 
of  life  into  the  occupants  of  that  valley  of  dry 
bones  called  Physiology. 

Most  Valuable  Knowledge  Not  in  Text  Books 

I believe  it  is  hardly  necessary  to  point  out, 
after  the  numerous  examples  which  incidentally 
enforce  the  fact,  that  some  of  the  most  valuable 
education  in  this  world  is  not  even  hinted  at  in 
the  school  books;  due  probably  to  the  fact  that 
in  the  pigeon-holes  which  the  modern  educa- 
tional system  has  inherited  frcm  the  old,  no 
40 


place  has  been  made  into  which  it  will  fit.  To 
enforce  this  important  point,  however,  we  may 
again  call  attention  to  a few  examples.  There 
is  no  school  book,  for  instance,  which  prepares 
a boy  to  say  why  it  is  that  business  is  dull  in 
summer,  why  a presidential  campaign  is  apt  to 
check  commercial  activity,  nor  to  tell  what 
^effect  a great  engineering  work  in  Egypt  will 
have  on  the  business  and  government  of  that 
country.  If  a boy  knows  what  strikes  are,  how 
they  are  caused  and  how  they  are  settled,  or 
what  a board  of  arbitration  is,  it  is  not  because 
he  has  learned  it  in  his  school  books.  Neither 
do  they  tell  him  why  iron  is  the  barometer  of 
trade,  nor  how  large  crops  stimulate  the  iron 
market,  nor  why,  other  things  being  equal,  stocks 
of  grain  and  railroad  stocks  play  see-saw,  one 
going  up  while  the  other  goes  down.  Yet  these 
and  hundreds  of  other  similar  questions  he  will 
be  asked  to  answer  when  he  gets  into  life  and  if 
he  cannot  answer  them  he  will  not  go  up  ahead. 
How  Unnatural  It  Conies  to  be  Natural! 

It  is  not  surprising  that  it  has  taken  a good 
while  to  learn  to  be  natural  in  the  art  of  educa- 
tion. We  know  from  our  individual  experiences 
and  the  experiences  of  the  race  that  copying 
Nature  truly  is  difficult — otherwise  the  first  art 
efforts  of  the  individual  or  of  a people  would 
be  the  best  because  there  would  be  the  least  arti- 
fice about  them.  We  know,  however,  that  first 
efforts  are  the  worst.  In  speaking,  in  acting,  in 
drawing,  we  naturally  begin  by  doing  things  un- 
natural^ It  requires  years — centuries  when  we 
take  the  work  of  our  ancestors  into  account — to 
learn  to  speak  the  truth  in  word  and  line.  Small 
wonder  then  if  the  art  of  education— so  much 


41 


younger  than  the  art  of  desolation,  of  war,  to 
which  man  first  devoted  his  energies — should 
have  gone  wrong  at  the  outset  and  for  a long 
time  thereafter.  The  pictures  of  life  whicn  have 
been  drawn,  the  conceptions  of  life  which  have 
been  formed,  with  the  textbook  as  the  sole  guide, 
have  for  obvious  reasons,  been  crude  affairs; 
must,  in  the  very  nature  of  things,  have  been  in- 
correct. It  is  equally  plain  that  progress  must 
lie  in  the  direction  of  getting  and  keeping  be- 
fore the  school  the  world  as  it  is;  that  there 
should  be  always  in  the  school  room  not  only  a 
globe  but  a globe  on  which  things  are  happen- 
ing; not  only  the  stage  of  life,  but  the  acts  and 
the  actors. 

Parent  and  Pupil  Need  Pedagogy  Too 

With  the  old  school  school  teacher,  teaching 
was  maiply  a matter  of  books.  Still,  to  the  aver- 
age parent,  the  school  is  mainly  a matter  of 
hours;  being  known  chiefly  as  a place  for  which 
children  are  expected  to  start  at  a certain  hour 
in  the  morning  and  from  which  they  are  expected 
to  come  at  a certain  hour  in  the  afternoon. 
What  takes  place  in  the  school  during  those 
hours  the  parent  knows  very  little  about  and 
gives  very  little  thought  to.  With  all  its  im- 
mense and  obvious  advantages,  this  is  one  un- 
fortunate result  of  the  public  school  system — 
that  parents  who  watch  the  education  of  their 
children  in  all  that  the  home  can  teach  turn  the 
matter  of  their  subsequent  development  over  to 
the  public  school  and  themselves  give  the  sub- 
ject very  little  further  thought  or  attention. 

It  is  strange  and  inconsistent  that  teachers  at 
their  institutes,  in  teachers’  meetings  and  in 
their  social  relations  talk  to  each  other  a great 
42 


deal  about  the  science  of  pedagogics,  but  they 
teach  so  little  of  it  to  the  children.  In  other 
words,  they  tell  each  other  the  object  to  be  at- 
tained by  teaching  various  branches,  but  they 
seldom  let  the  children  into  the  secret. 

It  is  practically  useless  to  tell  the  average 
pupil  that  his  studies  will  be  useful  some  day 
without  explaining  definitely  what  they  will  be 
useful  for.  From  his  infancy  up  he  wants  to 
know  “what  for;”  Nature  made  him  to  ask 
‘what  for,”  and  unless  you  answer  this  inquiry 
you  are  not  going  to  get  out  of  him  what  you  are 
trying  to  get  out  of  him— you  are  not  going  to 
educate  him.  A runner  does  not  fix  his  eyes 
upon  his  feet,  he  fixes  them  upon  the  goal— upon 
the  place  to  be  reached,  the  object  to  be  attained. 
Teaching  a boy  rules,  teaching  him  how  to  do 
things  without  letting  him  see  what  he  is  doing 
them  for,  teaching  him  to  figure  without  show- 
ing^him  what  he  is  figuring  toward,  teaching  him 
Geography  as  a guide  but  not  guiding  him  any- 
where with  it,  is  contrary  to  all  good  reason,  to 
all  sound  experience,  to  all  Nature. 

The  Bird  System  of  Pedagogy 

Even  in  the  most  elementary  education,  the 
rule  holds  good  that  action  and  instruction  go 
hand  in  hand.  Go  further  back  than  the  prim- 
ary school,  go  further  back  than  infancy,  further 
back  than  the  child  itself  to  animals  of  a lower 
order,  to  a young  bird  in  its  nest  for  example. 
The  business  of  this  bird  when  he  grows  up  will 
be  to  know  in  what  direction  his  food  lies,  in 
what  direction  he  shall  migrate  in  the  Spring 
and  in  what  direction  the  living  fields  and  the 
green  woods  lie  in  the  Fall.  Now  how  does  he 
43 


get  this  information?  No  other  bird  teaches 
him  to  say 

This  is  East  and  this  is  West, 

Soon  I’ll  learn  to  know  the  rest. 

He  learns  which  is  South  by  seeing  other  birds 
flying  in  that  direction  at  a certain  time  of  the 
year,  and  which  is  North  by  seeing  them  fly 
North  at  another  time  of  the  year.  Knowledge 
of  other  points  of  the  compass,  of  weather  con- 
ditions, of  the  nature  of  the  winds  and  their 
effect  upon  the  affairs  of  Birdland  he  acquires  in 
the  same  way;  and,  as  intimated  in  the  state- 
ment of  the  process  of  acquiring  it,  he  learns  the 
application  of  this  knowledge  to  his  life.  This  is 
correlation  as  Nature  establishes  it;  correlation 

is,  in  other  words,  merely  another  name  for  ac- 
quiring twice  as  much  knowledge  with  half  the 
effort,  without,  indeed,  any  conscious  mental 
effort  at  all,  in  a given  length  of  time,  as  you 
could  get  without  it;  it  is  cutting  across  lots. 
In  teaching  the  map,  that  is  to  say  Geography, 
by  showing  things  that  are  happening  on  the 
map,  you  not  only  get  the  knowledge  into  the 
boy’s  head  most  quickly,  most  easily  and,  to  a 
large  extent  unconsciously,  but  you  teach  him 
how  he  can  use  this  knowledge  after  he  has  got 

it,  by  showing  him  how  people  are  using  it,  in 
the  very  act  of  using  it.  By  introducing  into  the 
Arithmetic  class  the  problems  with  which  the 
banker,  the  merchant,  the  engineer,  the  builder 
are  dealing,  you  not  only  help  him  to  get  his 
Arithmetic  lesson,  to  understand  its  rules,  but 
you  show  him  what  to  do  with  these  rules  after 
he  has  got  them.  When  he  gets  out  of  school  he 
will  not  find  the  place  for  himself  and  his  talents 
in  life  by  standing  on  the  street  corner  and  call- 
ing out: 


44 


“ I am  the  boy  who  can  tell  you  in  a jiffy  how 
much  44  minus  15  times  22  times  33  minus  9 times 
21  divided  by  6 minus  175  times  222  is.” 

He  will  find  where  the  market  is  for  his  tal- 
ents and  acquirements  by  knowing  where  they 
are  in  demand  and  what  to  do  with  them  when 
he  takes  them  there. 

How  One  Finds  His  Place  in  Life 

By  asking  “ What  is  it  good  for?”  with  respect 
to  everything  and  every  piece  of  information 
offered  him,  a boy  finds  out  what  he  is  good  for. 
By  keeping  him  in  contact  with  the  real  thing, 
the  life  with  which  he  will  have  to  deal,  a boy's 
natural  bent  may  be  discovered  while  he  has 
teachers  and  parents  to  aid  him  in  its  proper 
development.  The  mature  judgment  of  the  par- 
ent and  teacher  can  tell,  from  the  kind  of  life 
knowledge  which  he  most  readily  understands 
and  quickly  assimilates,  what  he  is  really  fitted 
for  and  develop  him  along  that  line.  If  in  the 
illustrated  story  of  current  life  he  comprehends 
more  quickly  the  questions  of  public  policy 
which  constantly  arise  and  presents  more  clearly 
in  the  discussions  of  the  class  room  the  argu- 
ments pro  and  con,  this  may  mean  the  posses- 
sion of  a talent  which  should  find  its  expression 
in  journalism,  in  public  life,  or  in  the  law;  if  in 
his  compositions  on  current  events  which  vividly 
impress  him  he  shows  an  especial  skill,  this  may 
indicate  for  him  a literary  career  and  suggest 
the  specific  one  of  the  numerous  sub-divisions  of 
literary  work  for  which  he  is  best  qualified;  if 
he  grasps  most  readily  the  description  of  the 
great  works  in  mechanics  and  engineering  which 
characterize  this  age  and  can  most  clearly,  in 
word  and  line,  explain  to  his  classmates  the  logic 
45 


of  the  laws  of  Nature,  then  his  place  may  be 
that  of  a civil  or  mechanical  engineer;  if  the 
mechanism  and  operation  of  the  greatest  of  all 
machines,  the  human  body,  appeals  to  him  with 
special  force  then  here  may  be  another  physic- 
ian; if  his  eye  and  mind,  more  than  those  of  the 
average  boy,  dwell  upon  the  work  of  the  masters 
in  the  fine  arts  and  how  with  the  witchery  of 
lines  they  catch  and  hold  the  grand  and  beauti- 
ful forms  of  Nature,  in  the  shifting  clouds,  in  the 
restless  sea,  in  the  movements  in  all  animate  life, 
in  the  quiet  majesty  of  blue  masses  of  woodland 
crowning  distant  hills,  he  may  be  one  of  those 
from  whom  the  world  is  waiting  to  be  told  in  the 
universal  language  how  beautiful  it  is. 

T^C 

SEVENTH  ARTICLE 

BENEFITS  OF  THE  ELECTIVE  SYSTEM  AND  OF 
THE  THREE  SYSTEMS  OF  SCHOOLING- 
TRUE  ECONOMY  OF  PROPER 
EDUCATION 

A school  newspaper,  as  here  defined,  is  as  com- 
plete a reflection  of  the  world,  the  world  worth 
knowing,  the  world  worth  living  for,  the  world 
worth  working  for — all  its  duties,  responsibili- 
ties, opportunities  for  growth  mental,  moral  and 
spiritual  — as  can  be  presented  with  the  best 
black  ink  on  clear  white  paper. 

Has  the  Merit  of  the  Elective  System 
In  introducing  into  school  work  a careful,  true 
and  detailed  account  of  the  world’s  work  which 
is  going  on  simultaneously  outside,  we  furnish 
the  most  valuable  and  practical  application  to 
school  work  of  the  elective  system  and  all  its 
46 


benefits,  because  we  bring  the  pupil  into  contact 
with  all  of  life’s  activities  and  with  the  material 
out  of  which  life  success  is  built.  That  kind  of 
information  which  he  naturally  takes  to  and 
understands  best,  is,  as  just  indicated,  the  best 

* guide  in  determining  his  fitness  for  life  work  and 
the  lines  along  which  his  education  should  pro- 
ceed. The  advantages  of  the  elective  system, 

, first  employed  in  home  education,  later  taken  up 

9 in  the  colleges,  now  filtering  down  from  the  lat- 
ter into  the  high  school  and  rising  from  the 
former  by  capillary  attraction  first  into  the  kin- 
dergarten and  later  into  the  primary  school, 
have  recently  been  stated  with  clearness  and 
force  by  Miss  Gardner  of  the  Calumet  High 
School.  Two  of  the  most  important  of  these  ad- 
vantages are  that  it  answers  the  widespread  and 
growing  demand  for  commercial  education  which 
has  been  drawing  from  the  regular  schools  to 
business  colleges  young  men  and  women  before 
the  completion  of  the  regular  course;  second, 
that  it  adjusts  the  school  work  to  the  differing 
abilities  of  the  pupils,  “furnishing  the  bright 
pupil,”  as  Miss  Gardner  says,  “with  addi- 
tional employment  without  breaking  up  the  order- 
ly progression  of  his  regular  classes,  and  prevents 
that  loss  of  interest  which  is  always  apparent 
when  the  bright  ones  are  unduly  held  back. 
Teachers  of  long  experience  feel  that  the  new 
elective  system  is  a movement  toward  a richer 
development  of  the  bright  pupil,  a more  careful 
development  of  the  average  pupil,  with  the  pos- 
sible discovery  for  the  dull  pupil  that  there  is 

* something  for  which  he  has  a special  God-given 
aptitude.” 


47 


Private  Schools,  Public  Schools  and  Life  Schools 

There  are  three  systems  of  education,  each  of 
which  has  its  special  advantages;  these  are  the 
Private  School  System,  the  Public  School  Sys- 
tem and  the  education  of  life  itself  in  which  what 
are  known  as  self-made  men  get  their  education 
with  little  or  no  aid  from  the  other  systems  men- 
tioned. Walter  Yrooman,  the  founder  of  Ruskin 
Hall,  in  a recent  address  pointed  out  that  the 
men  who  created  civilization  were  not  products 
of  the  school  bounded  by  four  walls  but  of  that 
larger  school  bounded  by  the  world’s  circumfer- 
ence. “ The  men,”  he  says,  “who  gave  us  steam, 
the  railroad,  the  steamboat,  electricity,  the  tele- 
graph, the  telephone,  the  ocean  cable,  the  elec- 
tric light,  with  the  thousand  revolutionary  in- 
ventions in  modern  machinery,  and  the  discov- 
ery of  America:  Watt,  Stephenson,  Fulton, 
Franklin,  Edison,  Morse,  Cyrus  Field,  Wain- 
wright,  Peel,  Pittman,  Humphry  Davy,  Michael 
Faraday  and  Christopher  Columbus;  these 
men  never  withdrew  from  the  real  world  during 
their  most  formative  and  plastic  years  to  devote 
themselves  exclusively  to  amusement  and  to 
books.” 

Yet  that  the  self-made  man  realizes  perhaps 
more  fully  than  anyone  else  the  value  of  system- 
atic training  in  school  and  college  is  Shown  by 
the  large  endowments  of  such  educational  insti- 
tutions which  have  been  made  and  are  con- 
stantly being  added  to  by  self-made  men. 

The  advantage  of  the  Private  School  is  that  it 
gives  the  teacher  opportunity  to  deal  more  spe- 
cifically with  the  special  talent  and  special  men- 
tal characteristics  of  each  pupil;  that  of  the 
Public  School  and  College  that  they  give  every 


48 


student  the  advantage  of  contact  with  a larger 
body  of  fellow  students  than  the  Private  School 
affords;  and  that  of  what  we  may  call  the  Life 
School,  that  it  gives  a more  thorough  under - 
b standing  of  the  application  of  useful  knowledge 
to  life  work  and  at  the  same  time  supplies  the 
practice  in  its  application  in  which  the  other 
schools  are  largely  or  wholly  lacking.  Add  to 
♦ this  the  undeniable  fact  that  the  graduate  of  the 
life  school  achieves  important  results,  succeeds 
wonderfully  so  far  as  material  success  is  con- 
cerned, and  succeeds  in  other  important  ways 
also,  in  the  development  of  features  of  character 
—among  which  may  be  named  concentration, 
courage,  self-reliance,  breadth  of  view  and  fre- 
quently generosity,  magnanimity,  and  modesty 
—and  that  without  the  kind  of  knowledge  to  be 
acquired  only  in  the  Life  School  the  knowledge 
of  the  other  schools  cannot  accomplish  anything 
—and  the  importance  of  making  life  a school 
study  is  entirely  obvious. 

Not  ilore  Food  But  Better  Digestion 

Yet  it  conveys  an  idea  the  opposite  of  the  cor- 
rect one  to  speak  of  the  study  of  life  in  the 
school  as  an  additional  study.  It  cannot  be 
justly  complained  that  there  are  not  enough 
studies  in  the  school  already.  The  fact  is  that 
the  criticism  is  frequently  made  by  both  teachers 
and  parents  that  there  are  too  many.  What  is 
needed  is  not  more  food  but  better  digestion. 
# Since  all  school  studies  must  have  originally 
grown  out  of  human  experience,  they  should  still 
be  applicable  to  every  human  need.  Life  and 
the  school  must  at  one  time  have  been  as  inti- 
% mately  associated  as  the  two  figure  2’s  in  the 
49 


figure  4,  and  it  must  be  the  school’s  own  fault  if 
it  has  cut  the  acquaintance.  The  misconcep- 
tion of  things  thus  indicated  explains  the  failure 
of  teachers  who  have  not  been  successful  in  their 
attempts  to  keep  step  with  the  work  of  other 
schools  in  teaching  “ current  events.” 

As  frequently  taught  in  schools,  what  is  called 
the  study  of  “ current  events  ” is  confined  mainly 
to  the  political  developments  of  the  time  and  is 
carried  on  in  connection  with  the  work  of  the 
History  class.  Not  only  is  its  account  of  these 
events  brief  and  dry,  and  subject  to  the  same 
criticism  which  Spencer  made  of  History  teach- 
ing forty  years  ago,  that  it  was  largely  “ a mean- 
ingless tissue  of  names  and  dates,”  but  such 
value  as  such  current  statistics  may  have  is 
largely  lost  because  no  connection  is  established 
between  this  information  and  the  regular  school 
work.  It  is  not  surprising,  therefore,  that  the 
information  so  presented  should  be  regarded  by 
both  teacher  and  pupil  as  another  burden  added 
to  the  already  overloaded  curriculum;  another 
text  book  added  to  the  long  list,  differing  only 
from  its  predecessors  in  the  fact  that  it  is  not  so 
well  written,  is  poorly  printed  on  bad  paper,  has 
miserable  illustrations  or  none  at  all,  is  unbound 
and  comes  around  once  a week  instead  of  once  a 
year.  It  has  all  the  disagreeable  ear  marks  of 
the  text  book  with  none  of  its  attractions.  To 
suppose  that  a healthy  boy  with  his  mind  in  nor- 
mal working  condition  would  be  attracted  by  it 
is  to  suppose  an  appetite  for  dry  abstractions,  for 
meaningless  names  and  figures  which  nobody 
ever  discovered  before. 

A proper  sort  of  newspaper  used  in  school  does 
not  mean  the  introduction  of  a new  study  but  a 


SO 


new  way  of  teaching  all  the  studies. 

The  modern  maker  of  school  books  sees  that 
they  are  written  by  the  best  authority  he  can 
get  hold  of,  printed  as  well  as  the  best  typo- 
graphical skill  can  print  them,  and  illustrated 
by  the  best  artists  in  each  particular  line  to  be 
represented.  The  school  architect  and  the 
makers  of  school  apparatus  follow  the  same  pol- 
icy because  they  know  that  there  is  no  market 
for  anything  but  the  best.  A paper  to  be  used 
in  the  teaching  of  current  events  which  does  not 
conform  to  this  high  standard  must  obviously 
fail  of  its  purpose,  and  experiments  in  its  use 
depend  far  less  on  the  paper  itself  than  on  the 
skill  of  the  teacher  in  supplying  everything  it 
lacks. 

A Boy  Dislikes  Abstractions,  Loves  Detail 

If  papers  of  this  sort  are  guides,  in  other  words, 
they  are  mainly  guides  in  how  not  to  do  it.  A 
brief  abstract  statement  in  words  or  figures  has 
no  value  to  any  one  who  has  not  the  previous 
knowledge  of  facts  and  details  which  these  ab- 
stractions represent.  This  is  just  the  kind  of 
knowledge  a boy  lacks  and  just  the  kind  which, 
when  given  the  opportunity,  he  proceeds  imme- 
diately and  eagerly  to  absorb.  He  does  not  care 
for  the  history  of  Great  Britain,  for  example,  as 
summarized  in  the  list  of  its  kings  and  queens 
and  the  order  of  their  succession,  because  he 
does  not  possess  the  necessary  information  with 
regard  to  the  different  interesting  things  which 
took  place  during  their  reigns  and  which,  if  he 
had  it,  the  mere  mention  of  their  names  would 
represent.  But  he  is  fascinated  by  the  Kingdom 
of  Kobinson  Crusoe  and  wades  patiently  through 
the  interminable  details  of  Crusoe’s  life  because 
51 


it  is  a story  which  fits  in  everywhere  with  the 
knowledge  which  he  has  gained  and  is  constantly 
gaining  in  the  great  school  called  “Out-of- 
doors.”  iThe  very  thing  which  you  have  the 
most  difficulty  in  teaching  him  when  you  go 
against  Nature — when  you  attempt  to  make  your 
education  flow  up  hill — he  quickly  and  voluntar- 
ily assimilates  when  the  natural  course  is  pur- 
sued. 

A Progressive  Teacher’s  Ideal 

The  proper  sort  of  a school  newspaper  is  not 
only  much  better  adapted  to  carry  forward  the 
work  of  the  History  class  because  its  account  of 
current  history  is  not  a dry  summary  but  a full 
presentation  of  the  subject  with  the  detail,  life 
and  color  of  word  and  picture  which  appeal  to 
older  and  younger  readers  alike,  but  it  goes  much 
further  than  this.  It  covers  the  whole  range  of 
school  studies  and  is  edited  throughout  from  the 
school  room  standpoint,  from  behind  the  teach- 
er’s desk  so  to  speak,  with  a view  to  supple- 
menting the  whole  of  the  school  work.  The  edi- 
tor becomes  the  school  teacher  and  this  school 
teacher  says: 

“ When  my  Geography  class  comes  to  recite,  if 
I could  do  so,  I would  arouse  their  interest  in 
the  map  by  pointing  out  to  them  where  different 
things  are  happening  which  interest  other  peo- 
ple; I would  secure  pictures  of  men  and  places 
connected  with  these  events.  In  order  that  the 
class  might  benefit  as  widely  as  possibly  from 
these  things  and  that  they  might  come  to  the 
class  prepared  to  ask  more  questions  about  the 
things  I wish  to  teach  them  than  I ask  them,  I 
would  have  these  pictures  engraved,  this  infor- 
mation put  into  type  and  papers  printed  so  that  as 
52 


many  of  the  pupils  themselves  as  possible  might 
have  a copy  and  that  they  might  form  the  habit 
of  getting  this  information  from  the  printed  page 
* j in  school  and  out,  not  because  they  regard  it  as 
a set  lesson  but  because  they  are  interested  in 
the  subject.  If  I could  do  this  I would  not  only 
lighten  the  burden  of  school  work  upon  myself 
\ and  the  pupils,  but  they  would  get  along  a great 
deal  faster,  would  form  the  habit  during  the 
greatest  formative  period  of  their  lives  of  learn- 
ing the  things  about  current  life — the  life  they 
will  have  mainly  to  deal  with — which  they  ought 
to  know,  but  they  will  have  acquired  the  habit 
and  the  ability  to  get  it  at  the  source  from  which 
this  information  must  mainly  be  derived;  viz., 
the  newspaper.  Looked  at  in  its  broader  results 
I will  thus  not  only  be  teaching  them  where  to 
find  and  how  to  use  the  information  which  is 
really  valuable  in  the  daily  newspaper  when 
they  grow  to  be  men  and  women,  but  I will  guard 
them  from  the  unwholesome  influences  of  the 
daily  newspaper  with  its  valuable  information 
not  plain  enough  and  other  information  all  too 
plain,  and  1 will  be  helping  to  create  a new 
newspaper  constituency  which  will  eliminate 
the  objectionable  features  of  the  daily  paper  by 
ceasing  to  demand  them.” 

Obviously  the  teacher,  for  lack  of  special 
knowledge  and  experience,  of  the  mechanical  fa- 
cilities and  of  the  staff  of  assistants  required, 
cannot  carry  out  this  idea,  and  it  must  be  car- 
ried out  as  the  whole  process  of  education  which 
* we  call  civilization  has  been  and  is  being  carried 
out,  through  specialization.  That  is  to  say,  the 
work  is  so  important  and  so  broad  in  its  results 
that  it  should  be  taken  up  by  people  who  will  do 


53 


nothing  else  but  carry  out  this  ideal  of  the  pro- 
gressive teacher. 

Why  the  Daily  Papers  Will  Not  Do 

Children  do  not  avail  themselves  of  what  has 
been  described  by  the  editor  of  the  most  success- 
ful of  boys’  story  papers,  The  Youth's  Companion, 
as  “ the  one  regular  source  of  information  upon 
the  events  of  the  time,  the  daily  newspaper,” 
and  it  is  not,  in  the  opinion  of  the  same  author- 
ity—an  opinion  which,  we  believe,  is  generally 
entertained — desirable  that  they  should. 

For  this  condition  only  two  remedies  have 
been  suggested:  One,  that  the  teacher  or  parent 
shall  inform  children  regularly  of  men  and 
events;  the  other,  that  by  united  effort  all  good 
citizens  shall  so  reform  the  daily  press  that  it 
can  properly  perform  this  function.  One  of  the 
authors  of  the  first  suggestion  has  supplied  what 
,seem  to  be  conclusive  arguments  against  the 
feasibility  of  the  second.  These  in  brief  are: 

1.  That  no  daily  paper  can  omit  the  objec- 
tionable matter  of  the  sensational  order,  which 
almost  all  successful  daily  papers  contain,  and 
hope  to  thrive. 

2.  That  all  daily  papers,  being  mainly  local 
in  their  circulation,  and  ephemeral  in  the  time 
of  issue,  must  give  most  space  to  occurrences  of 
merely  local  and  ephemeral  interest. 

3.  That  to  obtain  the  benefit  of  such  informa- 
tion of  permanent  interest  and  value  as  they  do 
contain  they  must  be  read  daily,  otherwise  the 
reader  cannot  follow  the  plot,  so  to  speak;  and 
this  reading  must  be  reinforced  by  information 
previously  or  simultaneously  acquired  from 
other  sources.  In  other  words,  most  of  the  news 
of  historic,  financial,  scientific  or  artistic  interest 

54 


appearing  in  the  daily  press  presupposes  a 
knowledge  which  young  readers  do  not  possess. 

The  second  solution  referred  to  is  summed  up 
in  the  statement  of  an  educator  that  “it 
is  the  teacher’s  business  to  read  the  daily  pa- 
pers in  order  to  separate  the  wheat  from  the 
chaff.” 

As  above  indicated,  however,  the  production 
x*  of  a school  newspaper  of  the  proper  scope  and 
method  requires  much  more  than  the  separation 
of  the  wheat  in  the  daily  newspaper  from  the 
chaff.  A school  newspaper,  to  meet  the  needs 
of  pupil  and  teacher,  must  be  published  by  a 
staff  occupied  solely  with  this  work  and  pre- 
pared and  illustrated  with  special  regard  to  its 
use  in  school  work. 

AH  School  Study  “Supplementary  Reading’* 

This  is  “supplementary  reading”  in  a broader 
sense  than  the  term  is  generally  used,  and  prop- 
erly regarded  we  should  not  speak  of  the  study 
of  life  as  “supplementary.”  This  is  again  putting 
the  cart  before  the  horse;  reciting  the  lesson  of 
life  backward.  The  whole  of  school  study  is 
supplemental;  because  its  purpose  should  be  to 
supplement  and  enlarge  the  limited  views  and 
the  limited  knowledge  which  come  out  of  the  in- 
dividual experience  with  the  broader  experience 
of  the  race  and  the  accumulated  experience  of 
the  ages.  The  Present,  This  Life,  should  be 
made  the  starting  point,  the  inspiring  point,  of 
all  school  work.  The  school  book  is  mainly  the 
table  of  contents  of  Life;  Life  is  the  book  itself. 


55 


EIGHTH  ARTICLE 

THE  TEXT  BOOK  OF  THE  LARGER  WORLD 

The  original  idea  of  education— a fact  which  is 
preserved  in  its  etymology — was  not  to  pour  in 
but  to  draw  out.  This  observation  is  a trite  one 
in  educational  literature,  but  it  cannot  be  too 
frequently  enforced,  because  it  is  too  frequently 
forgotten,  and  it  applies  with  particular  force  to 
the  proposal  to  put  life  back  into  education. 
The  teacher  who  keeps  herself  thoroughly  in- 
formed on  the  course  of  things  in  this  world  and 
looks  at  them  through  her  schoolroom  window 
will  have  accomplished  a great  deal  in  making 
all  her  school  work  easier  and  more  effective. 
But  she  will  accomplish  a great  deal  more  if 
she  teaches  her  pupils  how  and  where  to  get  the 
same  information  and  to  bring  it  to  the  class 
with  them.  The  habit  of  newspaper  reading,  as 
fascinating  as  it  afterward  becomes,  is  to  some 
extent  an  acquired  one,  and  particularly  in  the 
case  of  a school  newspaper  which  omits  entirely 
the  horrors  and  indecencies  which  are  c nly  too 
readily  understood  by  the  juvenile  mind,  it  will 
be  necessary  to  some  extent  to  at  first  aid  and 
direct  the  juvenile  reader.  Such  information 
about  the  world  as  he  has  previously  acquired 
has  not  been  by  reading,  and  such  reading  as  he 
has  done  has  been  confined  mainly  to  story  pa- 
pers which,  in  spite  of  their  unquestionable  value 
— provided  they  are  the  right  sort  of  story  papers 
— give  him  but  little  knowledge  of  the  real  char- 
acter of  the  world  in  which  he  lives.  As  pre- 
viously pointed  out,  his  own  play  world  was  a 
counterpart  in  every  essential  detail  of  the  real 
world  and  all  its  business,  and  showed  beyond 


56 


question  his  desire  to  know  and  his  aptitude  for 
learning  about  the  larger  world. 

The  school  newspaper  is  the  text  book  of 
I this  larger  world.  In  the  main,  experience  has 
shown  that  the  greater  part  of  it  is  attractive 
and  comprehensible  to  him,  but  in  such  particu- 
r lars  as  experience  with  the  pupils  in  general 
'V  and  individuals  in  particular  may  show  to  be 
necessary  explanation  should  be  given.  To 
comprehend  the  story  of  real  life,  one  must  have 
some  acquaintance  with  the  previous  chapters, 
and  as  the  newspaper  in  the  very  nature  of  it 
must  deal  always  with  the  latest  chapters,  a 
summary  of  what  went  before  should  be  supplied 
by  the  teacher  as  occasion  demands.  For  a sim- 
ilar reason,  the  paper  will  continually  grow, 
both  to  teacher  and  pupil,  more  and  more  inter- 
esting, more  and  more  valuable.  Each  new  de- 
velopment will  be  explained  by  what  has  gone 
before  and  in  turn  help  to  explain  what  comes 
after,  and  the  other  school  work  and  the  schol- 
ars will  fit  into  it  as  naturally  as  a fish  fits  into 
water.  Let  him  get  a conception  of  other  rules 
just  as  he  got  a conception  of  the  rule  of  gravi- 
tation long  before  he  ever  heard  of  Newton,  by 
seeing  things  unsupported  fall  to  the  ground. 
Have  him  read  about  the  lord  chief  justice  who 
acquired  gastritis  and  he  will  have  the  structure 
of  the  stomach  and  the  rules  governing  its  proper 
care;  tell  him  of  the  woman  who  by  a surgical 
operation  was  made  to  see  after  seven  years  of 
y blindness  and  he  will  know  the  nature  of  the 
optic  nerve  and  the  laws  governing  its  opera- 
tion; tell  him  of  the  remarkable  number  of 
speeches  being  made  by  Mr.  Bryan  cr  Mr.  Roose- 
± velt,  and  the  effect  upon  their  vocal  machinery, 


57 


and  you  make  the  lessons  of  physiology  as  inter- 
esting as  a music  box.  Give  him  plenty  of  ex- 
amples of  this  sort  and  the  rules  and  definitions 
will,  to  a large  extent,  take  care  of  themselves. 

The  universal  fascination  of  the  newspaper  is 
a feature  of  modern  life.  A boy  will  acquire  a 
similar  interest  in  the  story  of  real  things  when 
he  becomes  accustomed  to  getting  his  informa-  v 
tion  from  the  printed  page.  We  enjoy  our  read- 
ing most  when  our  imaginations  picture  things 
most  vividly.  A child  has  a more  vivid  imagi- 
nation than  a man. 

Hamlet  With  the  Play  Left  Out 

The  aim  of  the  old  system  of  education,  as  I 
have  said,  seemed  to  be  to  take  facts  in  them- 
selves interesting  and  make  schoolroom  scare- 
crows out  of  them  by  giving  them  formidable 
names.  The  modern  and  natural  method  is  to 
lay  stress  upon  things  and  not  upon  the  names 
of  things.  It  is  blessed  both  to  give  and  to  re- 
ceive in  educational  work  if  it  is  done  rightly. 

We  know  how  dull  the  play  is  with  Hamlet  left 
out.  A mere  abstract  rule  or  disconnected  piece 
of  information  is  worse  than  this:  it  is  Hamlet 
with  the  play  left  out— a mere  abstract  man  in 
connection  with  whom  nothing  happens. 

Those  who  insist  that  school  training  must 
precede  actual  experience  and  knowledge  of  life, 
and  those  who  condemn  scholars  who  know 
nothing  but  books,  are  looking  at  opposite  sides 
of  the  shield;  both  are  half  right  and  both  half 
wrong.  Each  holds  a half  truth  to  match  the 
other  half.  Education  derived  from  the  school 
alone  makes  an  impractical  man;  or  even  if  you 
should  still  make  the  mere  acquirement  of  ~ 


58 


knowledge  the  end  of  education,  an  acquaint- 
ance with  real  life  is  essential  because  without 
it— any  knowledge  which  did  not  originally  come 
J from  life  being  inconceivable— one  cannot  under- 
stand the  application  of  his  knowledge;  that  is 
to  say  he  does  not  know  what  he  knows.  On  the 
'r  other  hand  knowledge  acquired  entirely  outside 
in  the  school  is  apt  to  make  a man  one-sided  and 
incomplete  in  his  development;  it  lacks  that 
symmetry  and  system  which  the  school  is  in- 
tended to  supply. 

The  teaching  of  children  by  the  old  school 
method— now  steadily  being  replaced  by  the  bet- 
ter method— is  like  training  the  soldier  in  the 
evolutions  he  will  not  use  in  war.  We  know 
what  would  happen  to  such  a soldier  in  the  day 
of  battle. 

The  A.  B.  C.  of  all  Education 

More  and  more  in  the  schools  there  is  coming 
to  be  less  of  the  book  and  more  of  the  teacher  ; 
less  of  the  abstract  and  more  of  the  concrete; 
less  of  rote  learning  and  more  of  natural  learn- 
ing; drawing  is  taught  by  giving  something  in- 
teresting to  draw;  language  by  supplying  things 
interesting  to  write  or  talk  about;  the  A,  B,  C’s 
by  supplying  a motive  for  learning  the  A,  B,  C’s 
— and  here  is  the  A,  B,  C of  all  education.  Edu- 
cation has  improved  mightily  everywhere,  but 
particularly  at  both  ends— in  the  kindergarten 
and  the  college.  It  is  now  being  improved  and 
needs  improving  most  in  the  middle,  in  the 
J grades  between  the  two. 

Viewed  from  the  standpoint  of  the  present 
• school  system,  the  proposition  to  teach  life  is 
not  one  of  subtraction,  but  of  addition;  not  of 
antagonism,  but  of  co-operation;  not  of  revolu- 
59 


t.ion,  but  of  evolution.  The  parent,  the  school- 
board  and  the  teacher  want  to  give  the  child  the 
best  education  in  the  least  time  possible;  an 
education  which  will  stay  with  him,  which  will 
become  bone  of  his  bone  and  flesh  of  his  flesh. 
What  for  want  of  a better  name  we  call  “ news” 
is  life-knowledge,  and  the  communication  of  it 
in  what  is  called  a “newspaper”  goes  to  the 
foundation  of  true  education  in  maintaining  that 
sustained  interest  without  which  education— the 
actual  assimilation  of  ideas— is  impossible;  in 
constantly  supplying  fresh  illustrations  and  ap- 
plications of  those  rules  and  principles  in  which 
education  consists;  in  restoring  to  its  rightful 
owner  that  keen  appetite  for  knowledge  which, 
under  the  old  system,  he  always  lost  at  the 
school  room  door. 

Teaching  How  Things  Are  Not 

Unless  the  natural  connection  between  life  and 
the  school  is  re-established,  you  are  sending  a 
boy  out  into  the  world  after  having  devoted  ten 
to  fifteen  years  to  carefully  teaching  him  how  it 
isn’t ; because  unless  he  sees  it  while  he  has  in 
hand  the  school  books  which  were  made  to  tell 
him  about  it,  it  is  mentally  impossible  for  him 
to  form  a true  conception  of  how  it  is. 

The  pupils  go  from  the  schoolroom  by  con- 
tinually diverging  ways  out  of  the  parent  nest 
into  all  the  world ; some  to  be  lawyers,  others 
to  be  physicians,  others  to  build  up  commercial 
business  for  themselves,  others  to  build  their 
lives  into  the  business  of  other  men.  They  take 
the  keys  to  life  which  you  have  given  them,  the 
lessons  of  the  schoolroom,  to  make  them  fit  as 
best  they  may  into  the  various  locks  they  come 
across.  To  send  them  out  with  keys  to  which 
60 


they  can  find  no  locks  is  more  futile  than  to  sup- 
ply them  with  locks  to  which  they  can  find  no 
keys.  What  we  call  the  self-made  man,  al- 
though he  may  not  have  one  of  your  keys,  often 
^ succeeds  in  getting  into  the  lock  by  main  force 
long  before  your  weary  hunter  with  the  lockless 
kjey  arrives. 

f Elsewhere  in  his  most  admirable  book,  “ The 
^School  and  Society,”  from  which  we  have 
quoted,  Professor  Dewey  has  this  to  say  about 
real  discipline  (that  knowledge  which  “ gets  into 
the  blood,”  as  Wendell  Phillips  said  of  knowl- 
edge acquired  of  newspapers) : “ In  critical  mo- 
ments we  all  realize  that  the  only  discipline 
that  stands  by  us,  the  only  training  that  be- 
comes intuition,  is  that  got  through  life  itself. 
But  the  school  has  been  so  set  apart,  so  isolated 
from  the  ordinary  conditions  and  motives  of  life, 
that  the  place  where  the  children  are  sent  for 
discipline  is  the  one  place  in  the  world  most 
difficult  to  get  experience— the  mother  of  all  dis- 
cipline worth  the  name.” 

Wastefulness  of  a False  Economy 

As  the  boy  is  the  father  of  the  man,  so  his  boy- 
hood should  furnish  the  model  for  his  school 
work  ; let  him  see  that  the  larger  work  to  which 
you  are  introducing  him  is  his  own  little  world 
on  a greater  scale.  Let  him  see  the  locomotive 
he  was  always  so  interested  in,  pulling  goods ; 
the  kite  exploring  the  mysteries  of  the  wind  and 
the  wind-blown  clouds  ; the  movements  of  cur- 
rency of  which  the  pin  money  in  his  circus  was 
ifran  expression  of  his  ability  to  understand  ; the 
_ traffic  of  which  his  playhouse  store  was  a proph- 
ecy; the  great  works  of  art  which  his  crude 
^rawings  expressed  his  instinct  for  ; the  opera- 


12  0621589 

tions  of  civil  government  of  which  the  organiza| 
tion  in  the  baseball  field  was  a prototype. 

All  schooling  and  all  school  studies  constitut 
a preparation  for  life.  To  spend  all  the  time  an 
money  required  for  this  preparation  without  ap 
plying  it  simultaneously  to  life  itself  is  going  t 
great  expense  to  get  ready  to  do  something  an 
then— economizing  by  not  doing  it. 


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